Bad Chili

Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, the popular Texas heroes of the best-selling The Two-Bear Mambo, embark on a picaresque adventure down South when Leonard is named the prime suspect in connection with the murder of a local good ol' boy. Tour."

"Don't you get a little tired working so hard to be folksy?" Hap Collins asks a colorful, clod-kicking private eye named Jim Bob Luke. "Naw," Jim Bob tells him. "I figure it's kind of an edge. People don't know what you're really thinking. They think you're just a shallow good ole boy." Nobody would ever think that about Collins, who looks like a long-haired '70s dropout and is seriously worried about the quality of his life. With his best buddy Leonard Pine--who aside from being black and gay is extremely tough and nasty in a firefight--Hap goes after the biker who first stole and then killed Pine's boyfriend. Jim Bob also gets involved in the chase, which converges on a corrupt local chili entrepreneur and a totally convincing Texas tornado. Two other Hap Collins books, Mucho Mojo and The Two-Bear Mambo, are available in paperback.