MORE BETTER DEALS by Joe R. Lansdale

Joe Lansdale is one of our best authors and a total genre chameleon. He jumps from genre to genre with no warning and succeeding better than most, whether it’s horror, buddy comedies, westerns, or coming-of-age dramas. And even though he’s a chameleon, he still stands out in each lane because he has a voice all his own. 

Now, he’s back again with a straight noir worthy of the Gold Medal or Black Lizard label. It follows a used car salesman and passing mixed-race, Korean War veteran named Ed Edwards who wants the White American Dream for himself: the dream of owning a business, having a white woman on his arm, and making enough money to send his sister to school. And to get that, he’ll do anything, whether it’s sleep with another man’s bored wife, or plot a murder or three!

This one was extremely enjoyable, and it's Lansdale doing what he does best, plotting a well-paced backwoods noir with enough violence, sex, and betrayal to make Gil Brewer or Charles Williams smile, and doing it with the knack for humor, dialogue, and dramatic irony that we’ve come to love from the author!

GRADE: B+