I’d like to start this review of Joe R. Lansdale’s The Bottoms by admitting that my only exposure to his work prior to this 2001 Edgar Award winner was a love of the film adaptation of Bubba Ho-Tep (which I only recently learned was based on a Lansdale short story) and a general understanding of…
Every Wednesday, we here at Criminal Element will put together a list of Staff Picks of the books that published the day before—sharing the ones that we are looking forward to reading the most! This week, a new Hap & Leonard novel from Joe R. Lansdale combines with C. J. Box's latest Joe Pickett thriller…
Because it’s Joe Fucking Lansdale. That really should be the end of this article. If you don’t know the work of Joe R. Lansdale, Hap & Leonard is a wonderful introduction to his most popular books. If you already enjoy his work, watching the series on Sundance is like reading the books for the first…
Joe R. Lansdale is the author of nearly four dozen novels, two of which were selected as New York Times Notable Books. His popular Hap and Leonard series has been adapted into a Sundance TV show and is now in its third season. Heralded as a “master storyteller” (Examiner.com), Mr. Lansdale has received the British…
Read Brad Abraham's exclusive guest post about mysteries featuring ordinary people, then make sure to sign in and comment below for a chance to win a copy of his debut novel, Magicians Impossible! To describe a novel as a mystery conjures images of hardboiled detectives, plucky criminologists, driven cops, and clever British pensioners. But at…
Every Wednesday, we here at Criminal Element will put together a list of Staff Picks of the books that published the day before—sharing the ones that we are looking forward to reading the most! This week, we get some great cozies, a couple of kickass thrillers, and a ridiculous anthology edited by Lawrence Block and…
The Best of the Horror Zine: The Early Years is an anthology edited by Jeani Rector that features horror short stories collected from the best of the first four anthologies from this award-winning, long-running ezine. Out of the corner of your eye you see something … there’s a shadow in the room that you can’t…
Great news! They’ve confirmed a Season 2 of Stranger Things. I loved the first season of the Netflix original series. Only eight episodes long, but it never feels rushed. The Duffer Brothers did a great job giving us characters we care about and a monster that truly terrified me. It's set in the early '80s…
“You can’t walk out of a slaughterhouse like this one without having a little chat.” Mickey Spillane said the first page sells the book, and the last page sells the next book. The last episode of this season’s Hap & Leonard sells the next season, and sells it hard. The last one ended on a…
“People suck, and they want everything.” There was a scene in Savage Season that stuck with me for a long time, and this episode brought it to life. We’ve become accustomed to scenes of staccato violence, coming out of nowhere to slap viewers out of their comfortable middle-class lives, wondering if it could ever happen…
