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CAPTAINS OUTRAGEOUS
by Joe R. Lansdale
Mysterious Press, September 2001
319 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0892967285


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Hap Collins and Leonard Pine aren't the kind of guys who ever have good luck. They've been best friends and sidekicks for a long time, and they are usually involved in some sort of situation that isn't going to end well. As the book opens, Hap and Leonard have a job guarding a poultry processing plant. You wouldn't think that would be fraught with danger, but Hap hears screaming in the nearby woods and interrupts a maniac who is brutally assaulting a young woman. For once, there is a positive outcome. The woman's father is so pleased with Hap for his heroics that he gives him $100,000 and a month's vacation from the poultry plant. Somehow, Hap and Leonard are convinced by one of their friends that they should do something special for themselves. And that's how they end up on a cruise to Mexico.

Well, before you can say "Ships Ahoy", it's back to "situation normal-all fouled up". Hap and Leonard end up stranded in Mexico. They face more dangerous situations, and Leonard is badly wounded. He is saved in the nick of time by a local fisherman by the name of Ferdinand. Ferdinand and his daughter are barely making ends meet, but they open their home to our boys while Leonard recovers.

Circumstances are such that the daughter and her father have been involved with and threatened by various nefarious characters. Hap and Leonard end up dealing with many of these loan sharks and gangsters, and the body count is high. Several of the deaths are of a particularly gruesome variety.

Captains Outrageouswas a big disappointment to me. It felt as if Lansdale had moved his characters out of their native Texan environment to Mexico in order to renew the series, and they seemed out of their element throughout. Instead, they got involved in a series of episodes that didn't really add up to a plot that made any sense. One of the keynotes of the series has always been the humor. Here, it felt totally forced. It was a one note joke (sexual), sung in 2 different keys (black/white and gay/straight). While amusing at first, the humor degenerated into "same old, same old" mode and fell totally flat by the conclusion of the book. I felt as if I were eavesdropping on the vulgarities of 2 adolescent boys.

It seemed to me that Lansdale's heart wasn't in the writing of the book. As the book concluded, I wonder whether there would be any future Hap and Leonard adventures, as it ends on a "They lived happily ever after" kind of note. I've very much enjoyed the other Hap and Leonard books, but this one didn't make the grade for me.

Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, July 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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