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Captains outrageous

Joe R. Lansdale

2001319 pagesabout 5–7 hours
2001
first published
  • 2001Mysterious Press · 319 pages · ENGISBN 9780892967285
  • 2003Mysterious Press · ENGISBN 9780759566583
  • 2009Vintage Crime/Black Lizard · ENGISBN 9780307455529

Hap Collins, a chicken plant guard, saves a young woman from an attacker, and her father, the owner of the plant, rewards Hap with a large cash bonus. No good deed goes unpunished, however, and when Hap decides he and his best friend Leonard should take a cruise to Mexico and the Caribbean, their troubles begin. Leonard, angered by coat-and-tie rules at an on-board lobster dinner, causes the two to be removed from the ship in Mexico, where in short time Leonard buys an ugly hat, is knifed by an off duty policeman, and is saved from armed attackers by a geriatric fisherman and his lovely daughter. The daughter turns out to have a past that involves a Mexican mobster who's a practicing nudist and has a seven-foot tall lackey who resembles a sumo wrestler. Trying for once to stay out of other people's business, Hap is overwhelmed with regret when the senorita is murdered, and the evil that haunted her follows him home to East Texas, resulting in the death of one of Hap's closest friends. Hap is hot for revenge, and he, Leonard, and Jim Bob Luke, a hog-raising private eye, return to Mexico to even the score.

How it feels

AtmosphereNoir

How it reads

Plot intensityEventful

When and where

ThemesJustice
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