Without a doubt, my favorite literary mantra comes from Neil Gaiman. I’m paraphrasing here, but Gaiman says that a good story should constantly leave the reader wondering “what happens next?” A good story leaves the reader unable to walk away until there’s a resolution of some sort because they are invested in characters and because it would be indecent to leave them in their current predicament.

Cold in July is my first Lansdale book, and it checks every box in regards to why I pick up a book. We’ve got a main character/narrator in Richard Dane who is an average person and unfolds the story in a manner that makes you feel like you’re having a drink with a friend who’s laying their (extremely) bad week on you. Dane is very likable and you want to see everything come out all right for him, but his wife, Ann, keeps him grounded, and gives us a reason to continue caring about his outcome. Lansdale also gives us a fantastic side character in Jim Bob Luke, who I would love to see pop up in another work.

The dialogue in the story, and I would imagine other Lansdale pieces, is arguably the thing that makes this work the best. While I was reading, I was deeply immersed, but I also spent a fair bit of time making mental notes on how to effectively write dialogue and keep the reader in the story. At any given time there are multiple page conversations between anywhere from 2 to 4 characters that eschew traditional he said, she said dialogue tags, and don’t lose you at all. Besides set up, Lansdale makes great use of local color and gets the reader to feel like they are part of this Texas culture, even if it is only for about 200 pages.

The action also gets a shout out here. Lansdale doesn’t mess around, and drops us right into the act that ignites the rest of the story by page 3. We follow this thread with great anticipation, and when it looks like it’s going to wrap up neatly, albeit prematurely, we are sent in a totally new, but thrilling direction. As I mentioned before, there wasn’t a paragraph or chapter break, where it was easy to put the book down. I perpetually needed to find out what happened next with all of these characters.

At this point, I don’t really know whether I am reviewing Cold in July, or whether I’m reviewing Joe Lansdale. I guess I’m going to have to pick up a few more stories by this guy and check them out. Oh well. Five well-deserved stars.