Another solid entry into Joe R. Lansdale's catalog of books. A boy with a traumatic past moves home when his father's body is recovered from a now dry lake bed, with his mother in the trunk. The dark underbelly of the small town begins to come to light when this boy, now a journalist and novelist, begins to investigate the history of the lake and town. Tense and darkly humorous, Lansdale has written another winner.

I love Joe Lansdale! His work runs the gamut of genre fiction--from humorous crime fiction to noir, sci fi, and horror--but you can always count on his books to be great.

Moon Lake is no exception!

Danny Russell was just a boy when his father drove their car off a bridge. Danny survived but the car and his father were never recovered.

Years later, a massive drought has left the lake almost bare and Danny's father's car has finally been found. But no one expected to find a second body in the trunk.

As a journalist and writer, Danny is uniquely positioned to find out what might have been going on with his father. But his investigation into his own past becomes a much wider investigation that many want to keep closed.

I loved this latest! Set in 1978 East Texas, it's just begging for a sequel or a series featuring Danny!

A stellar read for me and departure from my usual debut or mid-list authors. So enjoyed this book. Full Murder in Common review here:
https://murderincommon.com/2021/07/25/joe-r-lansdale-moon-lake/

“But you don’t beat the moneyman.”

Joe Lansdale’s Moon Lake is a tale of corruption, murder and the long-held secrets of a small East Texas town. The novel opens in 1968, with a father driving his 13-year-old year old son, Daniel to Moon Lake. Daniel’s mother, always a free spirit, ran off some months before, abandoning her husband and son. Now facing financial ruin, the father drives the son to the lake and then drives the car into the water. By some miracle, Daniel survives but his father does not. His father’s body is never found.

Temporarily, Daniel is taken in by the Candles family, also his rescuers, but Daniel, a white boy, can’t remain with this black family (East Texas, 1968)–even if he’d like to, and eventually, Daniel’s aunt June (Daniel’s mother’s twin sister) is located and hauled back to Texas. June isn’t a nurturing woman. In fact she makes it clear that raising a kid is the last thing she wants to do, but she does it. Years later, Aunt June is dead and Daniel, now an author, inherits her home. Around that time, a drought hits, Moon Lake shrinks to nothing, and in the dry lakebed, Daniel’s father’s car is retrieved. What remains of the body is in the vehicle, but the car is parked in a garage, and stranger still, a skeleton is found wrapped in rags in the trunk. Everyone assumes that it’s Daniel’s mother, but Daniel remembers that his mother had a silver star placed in one of her front teeth, and there’s no such tooth on the corpse in the trunk. Local law enforcement assume that Daniel’s father murdered his wife, stuffed her body in the trunk and then proceeded to drive the car in the lake as a murder-suicide. But Daniel isn’t buying that theory.

My mother was beautiful and mysterious-that silver star in her front tooth, her charming hippie outfits-but if you knew her for long, you realized how peculiar she was as well. It’s like she had clawed open a hole in the universe, gone into it, and clawed it back together again.


Back in Long Lincoln to identify the body found in the trunk, Daniel takes a room with a local widow, not the most hospitable woman, but the arrangement works. With Ronnie Candles, now a police officer, Daniel discovers that the lake holds many secrets and rich and powerful people are determined to keep those stories buried. Daniel finds a few unexpected allies and begins digging into the town’s hidden past.

I am a Joe Lansdale fan. Last year I read and loved More Better Deals, but Moon Lake is not his best. The freshness and vitality of More Better Deals is absent here, and while I liked some of the characters, overall the theme of small town corruption said nothing new. The most interesting character, Daniel’s aunt, plays only a minor role and disappears from the book all too soon. Interestingly, it’s the female characters here that grabbed my attention: Officer Ronnie Candles, mouthy Aunt June, the antisocial landlady, Mrs. Chandler, Shirley, the brainy intern, and Christine, the owner of the local paper. The male characters couldn’t hold the spaces they inhabited quite as well.

Review copy

Daniel Russell dreams of dark water. In 1968, his father attempted to commit a murder-suicide when he drove his car, with Daniel as passenger, off a bridge and into Moon Lake. Daniel survived, rescued by a young black girl and her father, and lived with them for a time, until being remanded into the custody of his aunt. Ten years later, a drought dries up Moon Lake and reveals Daniel’s father’s car — and bones of the dead woman locked in the trunk. Now a journalist and author, Daniel is adamant that the bones do not belong to his mother, and he sets out to figure out the truth.

Moon Lake is billed as a Texas Gothic, and author Joe Lansdale slowly unveils the secrets of Moon Lake and the community of New Long Lincoln. The original Long Lincoln was drowned to build a damn, and those citizens who refused to move were murdered in the ensuing flood. Overlaid atop these drought-revealed ruins are the ghosts of Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy, the much-too vibrant spirit of Jim Crow, and the corruption and evil upon which this fiefdom of New Long Lincoln was founded.

Given its Gothic sensibilities, Moon Lake toys with the supernatural but largely in the metaphoric. Daniel is haunted by the ghost of his father, but more in a psychological way rather than a literal fashion. More serious are the vile town elders and their murderous machinations that put Daniel’s life in danger more than once.

Lansdale incorporates Gothic traditions throughout, evoking decay and superstition via the setting and post-segregation time period, even as 70s-era Texan culture clings tightly to racism. All this is filtered through Lansdale honed, unique voice and spectacular writing, which regularly strikes humorous notes, wild turns of phrase, and quote-worthy dialogue.

Moon Lake is a spectacular read, and Lansdale keeps the pages turning with layers of mystery, the promise of evil, and the smooth, crisp prose he’s long since been known for.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for sending a review copy of this book my way!

<i>Moon Lake</i> is is the story of a small-town mystery involving a corrupt town government, a lake, buried bodies, and sunken cars. A young reporter who faced a tragedy in the small town has come back and, with the help of a couple friends from childhood, will try to untangle the mystery.

Because this is Joe Lansdale, this book is immensely readable with characters you immediately care for and turns of phrase that will make you think, and smile. No one tells a story like the Mojo Storyteller. But I must admit this isn’t my favorite Lansdale, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. I just found myself struggling to come back to it, and that’s why it took me so long to finish. Still, this is an objectively well-written story—so 4 stars.

With a bit more edge and horror imagery than Lansdale has used in quite a while, <i>Moon Lake</i> is distinctive amongst this author’s output and sure to please fans of small-town mysteries with touches of the horror and gothic.

MOON LAKE
Joe R. Lansdale
Mulholland Books
ISBN-13: 978-0316540643
Hardcover
Thriller

It is well-nigh undeniable that Joe R. Lansdale is one of the most versatile authors working in genre fiction today or, for that matter, over the past four decades or so. He can write horror stories, mysteries, science fiction, and thrillers while either firmly ensconcing his latest tale firmly in one genre or effortlessly blurring the lines between two or more of them. MOON LAKE is an example of the latter, a novel of historical fiction that combines elements of mysteries and thrillers with a love story and a bit of horror to boot.

For all of that, MOON LAKE is a bit of a coming-of-age tale too, at least at the beginning. The story, set in the east Texas town of New Long Lincoln, begins with Daniel Russell, a fourteen-year-old boy who narrowly escapes his father’s murder-suicide plan which involves driving their car into the Moon Lake of the title. Moon Lake has an interesting background, having been formed when the original town of Long Lincoln was deliberately submerged in water with a number of the residents still present, either by accident or design. Daniel’s mother had disappeared some months before, an incident which apparently led to the elder Russell’s suicide. In the aftermath, Daniel, now an orphan, is temporarily placed with a local family until his mother’s sister returns from abroad, at which point he joins her in another city. She is an interesting character --- no surprise to Lansdale’s legion of fans --- but her passing a decade later coincides with Daniel being summoned back to New Long Lincoln. It seems that the Moon Lake has evaporated as the result of a drought and the car which bore Daniel and his father to all-but-certain death has been recovered. The car, in addition to the body of Daniel’s father, also contains a surprise in the trunk, that being the body of a woman. It is all but assumed that the corpse is that of Daniel’s mother. Daniel, however, is not so sure, particularly because the body lacks a distinctive mark of his mother’s. What is also interesting is that it appears as though a local graveyard has been pillaged, with the corpses placed in the trunks of other previously submerged cars. Daniel, in the years during his absence from New Long Lincoln, has become a journalist and has also published a novel of some renown. This impresses a number of the hometown folks, including a local police officer named Ronnie Candles who happens to be the daughter of the family that took Daniel in on that fateful night ten years before. The two of them, all grown up, become involved as Daniel begins a journalistic investigation concerning the bodies found in the trunks. His research leads him to the reasons why Long Lincoln was flooded, as well as the motives behind the actions of the council members who have ruled the town with a collective iron fist. Daniel, Ronnie, and others are warned off of the investigation but persist, aided by an enigmatic ally who has been part of the town folklore for decades. It may not be enough, however, for Daniel and Ronnie to see that justice is done. The council members have a powerful supporter of their own, one who Daniel and Ronnie may not be able to overcome.

MOON LAKE is not my favorite Lansdale novel but still contains plenty of his trademark elements, including colorful turns of phrase, plot twists, and some of the strangest characters you won’t otherwise find outside of a bus depot. Lansdale even at this late date shows no signs of rust or slowing down. Regardless of whether MOON LAKE is my cup of tea or yours, it is still worth reading and very much so.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2021, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

Another amazing, gripping tale

There's a reason that three of author Joe Lansdale's books are on my all-time favorite list - The Bottoms, A Fine, Dark Line, and Edge of Dark Water. This man is one of my favorite storytellers of all times. From the first line in his books he draws me in, keeps me enthralled, and I always hate reaching the final page.

Moon Lake was no different. Set in East Texas as most of his books are, it tells the story of a town submerged under a lake and a young boy whose father gives up on life, trying to take his son into oblivion with him.

Most of the story takes place in the late 1970s when the boy has grown to be a young man and is back in the town of New Long Lincoln trying to track down answers to questions that some people of the town don't want answered.

As always, author Lansdale does a stellar job with his characters, both the good and bad guys. The bad guys are always especially evil and even more so in this case.

I highly recommend this book to everyone who loves an excellent storyteller.

I loved this book and was thrilled when I received an Advanced Reading Copy from Mulholland Books through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.

Joe Lansdale is a writer of many talents. In addition to his popular Hap and Leonard series and the recent classically noir novel, MORE BETTER DEALS, he has written in the horror genre and penned stand-alone crime fiction that might fall under the category of Southern Gothic. MOON LAKE is solidly in that last tradition, though his setting, as usual, is very specifically East Texas, a part of the Lone Star State that is graced with spooky lakes, oddball eccentrics, and Jefferson Davis statues erected long after the south lost, an attempt to rewrite history.

The lake itself is essential to the story. It’s a reservoir that drowned the town of Long Lincoln in order to create a recreational attraction that never managed to attract tourists. New Long Lincoln was built just below the dam as a replacement. As the novel opens, Danny is a boy whose mother has disappeared. His despairing father has decided to end it all in the lake – and take Danny with him.

Against the odds, Danny is rescued by what he initially thinks is a mermaid, but turns out to be Ronnie, a Black girl whose family takes him in until his aunt can be found. The time he spends with the Black family is full of warmth and kindness, as well as a romantic attraction to Ronnie that is frowned upon in the segregated town, but soon his aunt sends for him.

Ten years later, Danny has published his first novel and is a reporter for a failing newspaper when he learns that the car his father drove into the lake has been found and, along with his remains, the skeleton of a woman wrapped up in a blanket and hidden in the trunk. Though the police presume it’s his mother, he isn’t convinced. Ronnie, now a police officer in New Long Lincoln, helps him uncover the truth, which includes a ritualistic conspiracy, more bodies in car trunks, and a desperate chase through bootlegger tunnels that riddle the hill above the lake.

As readers have come to expect, MOON LAKE is often humorous, narrated in a tall-tale Texan drawl, exuberantly inventive, often creepy, and both fond and critical of East Texas, with its history of white supremacy and small-town corruption that, here, takes on echoes of the current popularity of bizarre “deep state” conspiracy theorizing. In Landsdale’s hands it’s more of a shallow grave of small town greed, wrapped in bigotry among small-minded local power brokers who cling to old social hierarchies and try to keep the past hidden. This eventful Gothic romp takes readers to some very strange places and, along the way, paints a picture of the viciousness and venality of people who won’t let go of the myth of white superiority.

Moon Lake by Joe Lansdale is this year’s summer read. I hesitate to mention that I burned through several chapters in my backyard hammock because it sounds cliche, but I really did and it was magical.

Lansdale’s storytelling voice feels like coming home and sleeping in your own bed. It’s welcoming, comfortable, and familiar. The main character, Daniel Russell, captures reader’s hearts immediately at age thirteen when the story begins. A sudden and life-threatening trauma leaves Daniel an orphan, and he is temporarily placed with an African American family who take him in as though he were their own kin.

The small town of Long Lincoln, Texas, in the late sixties does not look favorably upon a young white boy assimilating so well into the home of a Black family, no matter how well they’re taking care of his needs or how happy he seems to be there. Lansdale does an excellent job exploring social issues while preserving Daniel’s naiveté as he comes of age.


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I am a longtime fan of what I like to call ‘horror with heart’. Raised on the character-driven stories of Stephen King, I have developed a hunger for fictional people that I can emotionally invest in. Horror is at its best when the lives of characters you care about are at risk. In Moon Lake, readers watch Daniel process through grief, loss, first love, loneliness, betrayal, abandonment, and fear. We go through it with him. His struggle becomes our struggle. Ultimately, we want nothing more than to see Daniel get closure and find a community of people that will love him so that he can find some sense of belonging.

These basic human needs are at the core of every Lansdale story I’ve read.

Moon Lake transitions into a Southern Gothic crime-noir when grown Daniel returns to Long Lincoln after he gets a call from the local sheriff with some new information about his childhood trauma. Like any small-town horror or crime noir drama, once someone starts digging around in the past, peeling back layers and uncovering secrets, the townsfolk find out and put up their defenses. The town of Long Lincoln is a major character itself. Just like Lansdale’s famous fictional town of LaBorde, Texas, from the Hap & Leonard series, Long Lincoln is rife with ingrown systemic racism and has a long history of corruption in local government. The townies don’t take too kindly to anyone stirring up trouble or asking too many questions.

Daniel Russell teams up with some vibrant characters to assist in his urgent quest to solve a decades-old mystery, both for his own sake and for the sake of everyone else involved. There is so much to love about this story–I especially enjoy Lansdale’s sense of humor that helps lend a certain authenticity to the narrative. Life is never serious one hundred percent of the time, and horror doesn’t have to take itself so seriously. Characters, even the ones you fall in love with as a reader, do not have to be morally pure or make the best decisions–they can be flawed and a little fucked up, because honestly, if they’re not, who can relate?

It’s easy to single out specific characters and assign motives and theories to their involvement in Daniel’s mystery. At the end of every chapter, Lansdale tempts readers to keep investing, stay hungry and curious. Moon Lake seduces its audience into a smoldering, tantalizing mystery peppered with humor and heart. Don’t miss it!

" 'The moon is up. The water is high. Dark souls walk the earth and cry.' "-Jerzy Fitzgerald.

"My name is Daniel Russell. I dream of dark water." So begins MOON LAKE. This is the story of Daniel Russell, a young white boy with no living parents, rescued from a lake by a mermaid. Sent to live with the Candle family until his only living relative could be located-those days with the Candles ended up being some of the best of his life. But back in the late 1960's, a white boy couldn't live with a black family for long and soon enough he was reunited with his white aunt. Years later, though, returning to town due to his aunt's death, Danny decides to stick around. He's now a journalist and there is a mystery in New Long Lincoln, one that still bothers Danny to this day. This time, he's going to get an answer, come hell or high water. Will Danny solve his mystery? What does it have to do with the moon and the dark water? You'll have to read this to find out!

I just love Joe Lansdale's use of language and I have since the first time I ever read his work. He makes me laugh and he's also made me cry. At one point, in a boat in a storm:

"The water pushed at us like a thug wanting our lunch money."

Another time, when he finally met his aunt:

"Way she looked at me, I might as well have been a small pox blister."

Just simple words and phrases, but put together, in the way that only Joe R. Lansdale, Champion Mojo Storyteller, can do.

He writes in all genres, and as I once heard Brian Keene say on his now defunct podcast, Joe R. Lansdale is a genre unto himself. He writes westerns, mysteries and bat-shit crazy horror like the Drive-In novels. He writes suspense and he writes buddy novels, (Hap and Leonard.) There's nothing he can't write.

In this narrative we have a crime story, evil in a small town, a cult-like group of city councilors and a lake full of sunken cars. How can you not be enticed? I enjoyed the hell of out this book and I think you would too!

Highly recommended!

*Thanks to Mullholland Books and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!*

“The moon is up. The water is high. Dark souls walk the earth and cry.”
—Jerzy Fitzgerald

“..moonlit memories of the dark depths, the taillights of the Buick going down, down, down.”
And with this Daniel Russell abandoned by mother and with an aunt somewhere found some early joy in youth staying with the Candles family ones he expressed as:“The Candles are wonderful people. Better than my family ever was.”
His Christmas present from them contained of one particular set of items, the first John Carter of Mars books ones he says:“The three books bent me happily out of shape for the next few days.”
These John Carter books are something from truth of the authors life and books he held dear to becoming an author and great to read this little insert from an authors real life.

The lake, sawmill, junkyard, and the black cemetery, elements in this small town mystery that may be of significance.

He advanced on in age and moved and lived with his aunt, became a reporter writing articles for a daily newspaper and went on to write and publish a novel.
His real journey of becoming and challenges ahead in the tale with the research and writing of a nonfiction book.
This book would uncover secrets and hope to decipher his chaos of the past in the east Texas town in Moon Lake, that time weighty with lose and tragedy part of far bigger set of demons, ghosts, crimes and memories forgotten but never dead to be uncovered that others just won’t want to be.

Life and death in the balance with great writing, underdogs, believable characters, social issues with vivid lucid potency and at the same time having you cracking a smile on a dull day or a serious set of facts before you on the page.
Indeed a ‘Gothic gumbo’ awaits.
A Russian doll tale one inside another.

Daniel’s entire life has been shaped by the terrible day his father tried to kill both himself and his son by driving his car into Moon Lake. Only thirteen at the time, Daniel escaped, but his father did not. In an attempt to put his troubled past to rest, he returns to the scene of the accident to try to locate both the car, and his father’s remains. Instead of finding clarity he uncovers a new mystery surrounding what really happened on that long ago day