involving the pair.) As this book begins, the pair agrees to help a woman whose house and family are being terrorized by the aforementioned pig, appropriately named Porky. After subduing Porky, Hap determines that the pig had sampled some of the meth being produced by the Planter family living next door to their client.

Hap and Leonard soon find what’s left of the Planters in the nearby woods. They later discover the culprits are the titular women, a group of former residents at a women’s shelter. These women were recruited and trained in using axes and hatchets by an older woman who serves as a distaff Fagin to their murderous squad. The Girls soon cut a bloody swath through various drug dealers in Hap and Leonard’s East Texas surroundings and take over the turf of their former rivals. Not surprisingly, the Hatchet Girls’ efforts lead to several extremely violent and downright gory confrontations.

Book reviews often include sketchy plot synopses that omit many details to avoid spoiling the reading experience for others. Here, however, Hatchet Girls just doesn’t have that many plot details to conceal. Hap and Leonard only do intermittent and rudimentary sleuthing. The author includes descriptions of several “afternoon delight” get-togethers between Hap and his wife, Brett. The encounters are sweet, but do little to advance the story. Similarly, much of the book’s other material is well-written, often amusing, but unnecessary padding. Hatchet Girls is a short novel, clocking in at under 300 pages. Nonetheless, I felt the story began life as a novella, which the author expanded to novel length without adding much to the plot.

Fortunately, Joe R. Lansdale’s version of “padding” includes page after page of sometimes laugh-out-loud gems, as he describes the colorful scenery and even more colorful people in Hatchet Girls. I could easily fill an entire review with terrific one-liners, but I’ll settle for this one describing a typical sight in rural Texas, a mattress left out in a yard: “It looked oily and nasty, like a combustion engine had chosen that spot to puke.” Other, even better comments can’t be repeated in a general review. Many readers could finish Hatchet Girls in a day, but they’ll want to stop every few minutes to savor the author’s wit.

Hatchet Girls contains some graphic depictions and descriptions of violence and gore, so readers who are sensitive about such material should be cautioned. There are several showdowns between the Girls and various adversaries during which their hatchets and axes do considerable damage to their foes, which the author describes in gory detail. Unfortunately, the author’s choice of narrator dulls some of the impact of this material. Hap serves as the book’s narrator, but in two major action sequences, he isn’t present. Leonard describes his encounter with the Girls in one instance, while third parties relate the details of another gory battle. The author presents both scenes in detail, but the insertion of a buffering narrator gives those passages an odd feeling.

Those who have followed the exploits of Hap and Leonard over the last 35 years will sense that their journey is drawing to a close. “Hatchet Girls” doesn’t end on a note of finality, but it gives longtime readers the feeling that their next book may be their last. (Joe Lansdale is 74 years old, so he may be approaching the end of his writing days as well.) I hope the author has at least one more Hap and Leonard story to tell because Hatchet Girls feels like a placeholder. The author hasn’t provided readers with a completely fulfilling story. Except for the unique nature of the Hatchet Girls themselves, the book often reads like a description of a routine turf war among rival drug gangs, in which Hap and Leonard find themselves in the middle. The book also has considerable padding throughout. However, Joe R. Lansdale hasn’t lost his descriptive gift, and the many choice nuggets the book contains make it quite enjoyable for his fans.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.