Cold in July by Joe Lansdale

First published in 1989; movie tie-in published by Tachyon in 2014; published digitally by Particle Books on July 10, 2018

Joe Lansdale often writes novels and stories that are funny and playful, even if the comedy is dark. When Lansdale decides to write a dark novel that isn’t meant as a comedy, few writers are better at pushing the reader’s buttons of dread. I admire Lansdale’s versatility, but I like him best when he shakes my ability to face the hidden horrors of humanity. At the same time, there are few writers who are more humane than Lansdale, who are better able to look into the frigid darkness and find an ember of hope that deserves to be nurtured.

Richard Dane kills a burglar, quite legitimately, in self-defense. The encounter triggers thoughts of mortality, his and his son’s, who might easily have been shot by the burglar if he had wandered into the living room.

Dane lives in a small Texas town. Local jerks congratulate him for “getting one.” The decent people appreciate that he is going through a rough time because killing, in self-defense or otherwise, should never be a source of pride.

Dane feels compelled to attend the burglar’s burial, despite being warned by the police that the burglar’s father had just been released from prison and might be in the mood for vengeance. The father, Russel, makes a not-so-veiled threat against Dane’s own four-year-old son. The story’s tension builds from that point, as Richard puts bars on his windows and begins to realize that the facts are not what they appeared to be and that threats may be approaching him from unexpected directions.

A colorful and profane private detective named Jim Bob Luke enters the mix, hired by Dane to get to the bottom of an apparent conspiracy, but true to the novel’s tone, a vague sense of menace surrounds the man. Eventually Jim Bob and Russel and Dane chase a mystery, only to make a horrifying discovery.

Cold in July is the kind of story that confronts relatively good people with hard moral choices. The story eventually gives Dane the opportunity to act as a vigilante in what seems to him (and possibly the reader) to be a just cause. Typical vigilante fiction features a resolute and self-righteous protagonist with military training and lots of guns who makes the world a better place by cleaning up the polluting people he defines as scum. Dane is just an ordinary guy. He doesn’t see himself killing anyone. Whether he will or won’t take on the vigilante role and what effect that choice will have on him is the question than builds suspense in the novel’s second half. Readers can debate whether Dane makes the right choice, which is part of the reason to read a book like Cold in July. Lansdale makes clear that there really is no choice that can clearly be viewed as morally correct.  Whatever Dane does will lead to harm, and any choice he makes will leave a permanent scar on his soul.

Lansdale always tells a good story and he doesn’t waste words doing it. His characters are as real as they need to be. Readers understand a character's essential characteristics without wading through every detail of their formative years. Lansdale avoids making the villains stereotypes by largely ignoring them. We know what they did, but we don’t know them as people. Nor do we need to know them. The focus instead is on the good guys, who are flawed but far from evil, making it easy for the reader to hope for the best when the shooting starts.

Cold in July builds suspense until the story reaches its bloody climax. It isn’t possible to close one’s eyes when reading a book, but readers might find themselves holding their breath. I don’t know if the movie adaptation is any good (Roger Ebert didn’t think so), but Cold in July played as a thumbs up movie in my mind.

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