As I’ve found myself hooked on the IFC Channel series Hap and Leonard, I decided one evening—as is my wont to do—to read the source material for this stellar show. In this case, the novel Savage Season by Joe R. Lansdale, the first in a series of novels featuring the exploits of East Texas desperadoes and good buddies, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine.

In Mr. Lansdale’s book as in the series, the recently-unemployed Hap and Leonard receive an unexpected visit from Hap’s ex, Trudy. She hires them to help find a million dollars from a 20-year-old bank heist believed to be in a car at the bottom of a river. Hap and Leonard take the gig and soon join forces with Trudy’s friends Howard, Chub, and Paco, all relics from the radical sixties.

The plot proceeds at an even, almost leisurely pace through the first two-thirds of the book; not much happens from an action standpoint, but as the story progresses, you just know the author is building to something, well, explosive. Which is what happens as the novel hits the home stretch, leading to a bloody, brutal climax. I read the last quarter of the book in one gulp.

Told from Hap’s first-person perspective, the story could have benefited from being written in an omnipotent third person POV. For starters, we know little about how ex-con Hap and Vietnam veteran Leonard came to know each other; shifting the POV also would have enabled Mr. Lansdale to introduce the characters Solider and Angel much earlier (as was done so well on the TV series). Aside from learning about their relationship with Paco, we don’t have much of an inkling about their backstories, although the air of mystery surrounding them is somewhat appealing.

Aside from those few nits, Savage Season is a true page-turner, a fun, noir-ish caper novel with punchy dialog and a splendid mix of characters. Whether you’ve watched the show or not, do yourself a favor and read the novel.