Product Description

He has been called “hilarious . . . refreshing . . . a terrifically gifted storyteller with a sharp country-boy wit” (Washington Post Book World), and praised for his “folklorist’s eye for telling detail and [his] front-porch raconteur’s sense of pace” (New York Times Book Review). Now, Joe R. Landsdale gives us a fast-moving, electrifying new novel: a murder mystery set in a steamy backwater of Depression-era East Texas.
It begins with an explosion: Sunset Jones kills her husband with a bullet to the brain. Never mind that he was raping her. Pete Jones was constable of the small sawmill town of Camp Rapture (“Camp Rupture” to the local blacks), where no woman, least of all Pete's, refuses her husband what he wants.

So most everyone is surprised and angry when, thanks to the unexpected understanding of her mother-in-law—three-quarter owner of the mill—Sunset is named the new constable. And they're even more surprised when she dares to take the job seriously: beginning an investigation into the murder of a woman and an unborn baby whose oil-drenched bodies are discovered buried on land belonging to the only black landowner in town. Yet no one is more surprised than Sunset herself when the murders lead her—through a labyrinth of greed, corruption, and unspeakable malice—not only to the shocking conclusion of the case, but to a well of inner strength she never knew she had.

Landsdale brings the thick backwoods and swamps of East Texas vividly to life, and he paints a powerfully evocative picture of a time when Jim Crow and the Klan ruled virtually unopposed, when the oil boom was rolling into and over Texas, when any woman who didn't know her place was considered a threat and a target. In Sunset, he gives us a woman who defies all expectations, wrestling a different place for herself with spirit and spit, cunning and courage. And in Sunset and Sawdust he gives us a wildly energetic novel—galvanizing from first to last.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #943369 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-14
• Released on: 2004-03-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From AudioFile
In an East Texas sawmill town at the beginning of the oil boom, a rape leads Sunset Jones to shoot her husband. He had been the constable of the town, which is still a place of prejudice against women, blacks, and anyone who gets in the way. When she's appointed the new constable by her influential mother-in-law, Sunset takes the job seriously, and all hell breaks loose. Joe Lansdale delivers an effective yet unhurried story that puts the listener at ease while being shocked by the goings-on in the backwoods, where the Klan rules and women had best obey their men, or else. B.J.P. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Whether he's writing Hap Collins-Leonard Pine mysteries, genre-bending horror novels, or his own blend of historical fiction and gritty country noir, cult-favorite Lansdale rarely hits a wrong note. He's a superb stylist and a first-rate storyteller, and his sandpaper wit never fails to scratch out a brand of humor that hovers somewhere between knee-slap funny and painfully revelatory. He's in his country-noir mode here, in what just may be his best novel yet. The tale begins with a hold-your-breath set piece in which red-haired beauty Sunset Jones kills her husband, Pete, who happened to be raping her at the time. Given all that, it comes as a surprise to the residents of Camp Rapture, an ironically named sawmill settlement in Depression-era East Texas, when Sunset's mother-in-law, majority owner of the mill, arranges to have Sunset replace Pete as the settlement's constable. Soon enough, Sunset--with the help of two deputies, both with romantic designs on their boss--is investigating the murder of a woman and her unborn child, a crime that may implicate Pete. Lansdale layers the mystery elements skillfully, building to an action-filled climax, but where he really shines is in his evocation of both the desperation and the determination that grew from the dirt of the Depression. Sunset is a marvelous character; you don't see many feminist heroines in the femme-fatale world of noir, which makes her emergence, her coming-of-age in an age set firmly against her, so exhilarating. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Back Cover
“[Sunset and Sawdust is] filled with turns and twists, nastiness, broad humor, moments of grace. . . . Lansdale is a storyteller in the great American tradition.” –The Boston Globe

“A wonderfully nasty piece of work [that] inspires I-can’t-believe-this laughter. . . . Very entertaining.” –Newsday

The opening . . . will grab unsuspecting readers by the lapels and pull them right in. . . . Lansdale's prose--laconic and sarcastic--is so thick with slang and regional accent that it's as tasty as a well-cured piece of beef jerky." --The Denver Post

"Lansdale is an exceptional storyteller . . . readers will feel the Texas heat and hear the story in the author's unique East Texas drawl. The vivid characterization will make readers cheer for the protagonist and boo the villain." --Rocky Mountain News

“Delivers the unexpected and bizarre that his fans have come to expect. . . . The narrative is entertaining, but Lansdale’s patently unvarnished storytelling–backwoods and brash all at once–is the real reason to crack this cover.” --Texas Monthly

"Funny, bloody and bizarre. . . . Another five-star doozy of a tale from an immensely talented and original storyteller." --The Flint Journal

“Sunset Jones is the kind of woman that men who drink in East Texas bars would call a ‘pistol.’ As a tornado rips through the sawmill camp town of Rapture, in the rousing opening scene of Joe R. Lansdale’s historical barnburner Sunset and Sawdust, Sunset finally puts a stop to her husband Pete’s bloody beatings. . . . Soon Sunset has her own posse, including a wonderful dog whose abject adoration of the fiery gunslinger pretty much sums up this reader’s feelings.” --The New York Times Book Review

"A first-rate whodunnit. . . . [Lansdale] knows how to tell a story." --The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“Sly, easy-paced and so comfortable in its setting that it becomes almost seductive. This is what good storytelling is all about.” --Arizona Republic

"Lansdale can catch that meandering East Texas twang in his writing, but just as quickly he can tighten the plot and our stomachs with a turn of phrase. . . . Lansdale gives us both atmosphere and action." --Winston-Salem Journal

"Surrealistic. . . . Unpredictable. . . . A darker kind of storytelling." --Pittsburg Tribune-Review


From the Trade Paperback edition.