Joel R. Lansdale\u2019s<\/a> 14th darkly comic novel about the duo, \u201cThe Hatchet Girls.\u201d<\/p>\nHap and Leonard aren\u2019t animal control experts. They, along with Hap\u2019s wife, Brett, are private detectives. But the woman is so distraught that they take pity on her and agree to subdue the enormous creature. It does not go well.<\/p>\n
The hog chases the two pals around the yard, crashes into the woman\u2019s house when they seek refuge inside, and trashes the place. The result is perhaps the funniest man vs. beast scene since Mark Wahlberg brawled with his teddy bear in the 2012 movie \u201cTed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once they manage to get Porky under control, they examine the neighbors\u2019 outbuildings and discover why the animal had been so aggressive. The neighbors were meth cookers, and Porky had been sampling the merchandise.<\/p>\n
Hap and Leonard are still poking around the place when the neighbors, the Planter family, show up, take exception, and make themselves the target of our heroes\u2019 wisecracks and sarcasm. Since Hap and Leonard are also capable of extreme violence when provoked, the reader is apt to anticipate a showdown. But it is not to be.<\/p>\n
Instead the Planters later turn up dead, their bodies chopped to pieces by The Hatchet Girls, a cultish gang of women who hate men and are determined to take over the meth business in this corner of rural Texas. When more meth cookers get hacked to bits, both the region\u2019s drug kingpin and the local sheriff enlist the P.I. partners to put an end to The Hatchet Girls.<\/p>\n
Hap and Leonard take on the task somewhat half-heartedly, distracted by life changes. Leonard, who is gay, is planning to get married. Hap and Beth are moving into a new home. And both of the men contemplate getting out of the violence business to run a gym.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Hatchet Girls\u201d is a bit of a letdown, neither as suspenseful nor as funny as last summer\u2019s \u201cSugar on the Bones,\u201d but fans of Hap and Leonard may find it entertaining enough to hope for another installment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHatchet Girls\u201d by Joe R. Lansdale. Mulholland via AP A poor country woman and her kids are being…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":156346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1578,1022,3974,171,1084,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-156345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-associated-press","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-content-providers","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-literature","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115051120862376641","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}