Captains Outrageous

Hap Collins is working as a security guard for a poultry plant when he saves a young woman from a brutal assault only to find that she is the daughter of the plant’s owner. As a reward the owner gives Hap $100,000, enough for Hap and his best friend Leonard Pine to take a vacation cruise down old Mexico way. However, when they become involved with an elderly fisherman and his beautiful daughter, they bring a world of trouble down on their heads. Lansdale’s writing is blunt, sometimes crude, and no holds barred violent, but it’s also witty, outrageously funny, and often touching. Phil Gigante’s delivery brings a sitting-at-the-bar intimacy to the book’s first-person narrative, and his delivery of the laugh-out-loud dialogue is worth the price of admission. A Vintage paperback. (Nov.)