Books

Leather Maiden
By Joe R. Lansdale, Knopf, 2008, 304 pp.

If his latest effort is any indication, Joe R. Lansdale is ready for the big time.

Already a recognized talent among both horror/fantasy fans and critics, Lansdale, winner of the 2001 Edgar Award from Mystery Writers of America (not to mention six Bram Stoker awards) has remained sadly anonymous to the average book-buying public Leather Maiden will change all that.

From its opening paragraph, Lansdale tightens his grip around the reader's throat and refuses to let go. As the story steadily unfolds with each mystery revealing a darker, more brutal betrayal, Leather Maiden quickly becomes the perfect who-done-it.

For those who love white-knuckle joy rides, Leather Maiden has it all — kinky sex, murder, racial unrest, small-town intrigue, raw humor, strange characters and treachery upon treachery.

And best of all, it oozes with clichés, which, if it were any other genre, would be insulting, but for Lansdale it's what makes Leather Maiden such a guilty pleasure. There is an inescapable familiarity to the entire plot. But cliché doesn't necessarily translate into predictable as each plot twist and development is delivered like a punch to the stomach. All the way down to the impossibly snappy dialogue, Lansdale has crafted a sinuous masterpiece.

Cason Statler is a disgraced reporter and war veteran with more emotional baggage than good sense. He has returned to his hometown of Camp Rapture, Texas in hopes of getting a second — or third — chance to resurrect a journalism career that once included a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize.

On his first day as a columnist for the local daily newspaper, Statler stumbles across the unsolved disappearance of a beautiful college student. After a column about the mystery is published, a strange package arrives at Statler's front door. Inside is a DVD that reveals the tip of a blackmail scheme that threatens to not only destroy his own family but tear apart a small Texas town.

Briskly paced and fully realized, Leather Maiden survives on the strength of its oddly flawed characters.

From Statler, who's not only an alcoholic suffering with OCD, but still carries a torch for the small-town girl he left behind only to return to find she wishes he'd died "over there," to the sociopathic war buddy, Booger, who shows up in the nick of time with a duffel bag full of handguns, Lansdale's writing breathes new life into countless tired clichés and manages to tell one heck of story along the way.

Leather Maiden is a page-turner of the highest caliber. And perhaps the greatest joy is that this isn't even his best work. But it's a perfect starting point.