{"product_id":"sunset-and-sawdust-isbn-9780375719226","title":"Sunset and Sawdust","description":"In the middle of a cyclone, beautiful, red-haired Sunset Jones shoots her husband Pete dead when he tries to beat and rape her. To Camp Rapture’s general consternation, Sunset’s mother-in-law arranges for her to take over from Pete as town constable.  As if that weren’t hard enough to swallow in depression era east Texas, Sunset actually takes the job seriously, and her investigation into a brutal double murder pulls her into a maelstrom of greed, corruption, and unspeakable malice.  It is a case that will require a well of inner strength she never knew she had.\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eSpirited and electrifying, \u003cb\u003eSunset and Sawdust\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eis a mystery and a tale like nothing you’ve read before.“[\u003cb\u003eSunset and Sawdust\u003c\/b\u003e is] filled with turns and twists, nastiness, broad humor, moments of grace. . . . Lansdale is a storyteller in the great American tradition.” –\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A wonderfully nasty piece of work [that] inspires I-can’t-believe-this laughter. . . . Very entertaining.”  –\u003ci\u003eNewsday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe 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.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Denver Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"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.\" --\u003ci\u003eRocky Mountain News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“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.” --\u003ci\u003eTexas Monthly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Funny, bloody and bizarre. . . . Another five-star doozy of a tale from an immensely talented and original storyteller.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Flint Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“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 \u003ci\u003eSunset and Sawdust\u003c\/i\u003e, 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.” --\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A first-rate whodunnit. . . . [Lansdale] knows how to tell a story.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Globe and Mail \u003c\/i\u003e(Toronto)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sly, easy-paced and so comfortable in its setting that it becomes almost seductive. This is what good storytelling is all about.”  --\u003ci\u003eArizona Republic\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"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.\" --\u003ci\u003eWinston-Salem Journal\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Surrealistic. . . . Unpredictable. . . . A darker kind of storytelling.\" --\u003ci\u003ePittsburg Tribune-Review\u003c\/i\u003eJoe R. Lansdale has written more than a dozen novels in the suspense, horror, and Western genres. He has also edited several anthologies. He has received the British Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, six Bram Stoker Awards, and the 2001 Edgar Award for best novel from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, with his family.On the afternoon it rained frogs, sun perch, and minnows, Sunset  discovered she could take a beating good as Three-Fingered Jack.  Unlike Jack, who had taken his in the sunshine, she took hers in her  own home at the tail end of a cyclone, the windows rattling, the roof  lifting, the hardwood floor cold as stone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe was on her back wearing only the top half of her dress, because  the bottom half had been ripped away when Pete, during the process of  beating her, had stepped on it, and the dress, rotten as politics,  had torn and left her clothed only from waist to shoulders.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt went through her mind that she was down to two dresses now, and  that she hated to see this one go, as it, though faded, had a flowery  pattern she liked and the colors blended well with the stains.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut this was a passing thought. She was mostly thinking: How can I  stop him from hitting me? She was trying to do this by holding her  hands up, but he was beating them down, and her own arms and hands  flying back into her face were doing near the damage his fists might  have.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinally, he hammered her to the floor, followed her down, spread her  legs, went to tearing and clawing off the rest of her clothes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the top of her dress ripped open and he jerked loose one side of  her bra, revealing her, he said, \"There's that tittie.\" His speech  was slurred and his breath seemed to bleed alcohol.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe raked at her undergarments, tore them and tossed them. When he  snapped his gun belt free, he tossed it nearby, and while he was on  her, tugging at his zipper, trying to put the mule in the barn,  Sunset reached over and slipped his .38 revolver from its holster,  and without him being aware, put it to his head, gave him one in the  temple.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen she pulled the trigger the shot was loud as Gabriel blowing her  up to heaven, but it was Pete who went to heaven. Or departed anyway.  Sunset liked to think he got a nice chair in hell, right next to the  oven.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut in that moment, the shot made her scream, once, sharp and hard as  if she had taken the bullet, or as if she had just received a slap on  the bottom at birth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePete went limp, not only in the organ he had intended to use, but all  over. He said not a word. No \"Ouch,\" \"Oh shit,\" or \"Can you believe  that?\" Things he liked to say under normal circumstances, moments of  surprise and duress.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe just took the hot load, cut a fart near loud as the .38 shot,  collapsed, and rode on out on Death's black horse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf it wasn't bad enough she had lost her dress, underclothes, and  dignity, now all the windows on the east side shook like Marley's  chains, then exploded. The door leaped apart as if it had never been  anything other than a loosely connected puzzle, and the wind took the  roof away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe lay there on her back, fragments of clothes fastened to her body,  her old flat-heeled shoes still on her feet, a piece of window glass  poking out of her shoulder, Pete lying heavy against her. She still  had the gun in her hand. The shot had gone in small and hadn't come  out big like she expected. It must have been a bad load, jumping  around in his brain, making jelly of it. Blood ran from the wound,  out of his nose and onto her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe rolled him off and looked at him. No mistaking. He wasn't going  to recover from this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Surprised you, didn't I?\" Sunset said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe studied Pete for a long moment, then started to scream as if a  banshee were inside of her. But it wasn't screaming you would have  heard if you had been in the other room. It was loud enough, but the  storm was louder. The house rocked, squeaked, squealed, and whined.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen, except for the floor, two ugly chairs, an iron cookstove,  Sunset and the dead man, it was all sucked up and thrown  lickety-split on down country.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunset, screaming, clung to the floor while the storm raved on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe moment the storm passed, the sky turned clear and the sun poked  out and stoked up the heat. It was as if the cool wind and rain had  never been.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunset stood up, weak and bleeding, fragments of her clothes falling  from her. She pulled the piece of glass from her shoulder. It came  out smooth without causing too much damage, hardly any blood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNaked, except for her shoes and the gun she was holding, she wandered  off of what remained of her house, stumbled down the muddy clay road  in front of the place, frogs, minnows, and perch hopping and flapping  beneath her shoes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe felt as lost as Cain after he killed Abel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe saw Pete's car, turned over and smashed up, bent in half between  two big oak trees as if it had been made of wet licorice. Nearby, his  wooden file cabinet was burst open and there were files all over the  place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFatefully, she came across one of her curtains, made from a flour  sack and dyed blue. It had wrapped itself around a scrub tree limb  and was hanging there like it was on the arm of a valet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunset draped it around the lower part of her body, pulled her long  red hair down over her breasts, started down the road again, mud  squishing around her shoes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStooping to yank a mashed frog from the bottom of her shoe, she  looked up to see the colored knife sharpener, Uncle Riley, coming  down the road with his two mules and wagon. Uncle Riley's son, Tommy,  was walking alongside him, spearing sun perch from the ground with a  sharp stick, flipping them into the wagon bed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUncle Riley pulled on the reins when he saw her, said, \"Oh, hell. Now  I ain't looking, Miss White Woman. Really. And Tommy, he ain't  neither. We ain't seeing a thing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Tommy was seeing plenty. Sunset's breasts were poking through her  red hair, and Tommy had never seen breasts before, white or black,  except those of his mama when suckling, but that was a long-lost  memory.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunset, at that moment, didn't care who saw what. She was bleeding  from nose and mouth and her eyes were starting to swell shut. She  felt as if she had been set on fire and put out with a yard rake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Uncle Riley,\" she said, \"it's me, Sunset. I been beat.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Oh, Lord, chile, you sure have. I'm gonna get down and help you.  Don't shoot at nothing now, you hear?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunset staggered to one knee, tried to get up, couldn't.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUncle Riley, who was six-four and forty-four, weighed two-twenty and  had a slick bald head he covered with a droopy hat, climbed down from  the wagon, took off his work shirt, kept his head turned as he walked  toward her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUncle Riley put the shirt over Sunset's shoulders. She dropped the  curtain and pulled the shirt shut and buttoned it with her free hand.  All this from where she knelt on one knee. She tried again to get up,  but couldn't. Uncle Riley lifted her into his arms easy as a child.  She clung to the pistol as if it were a part of her hand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe carried her to the wagon and set her on the seat, climbed up  beside her. \"Now I ain't touching on you, Miss Sunset.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's okay, Uncle Riley. You've been a real gentleman.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTommy, who was standing beside the wagon with a fish stuck on the end  of his pointed stick, had yet to close his mouth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Get on up here,\" Uncle Riley said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTommy climbed in the back of the wagon with the fish they had been  collecting. They were scattered from one end of the wagon bed to the  other, and in places they were ankle deep. Uncle Riley had seen the  rain of fish as a bonus from God. Fish to eat, fish to salt and smoke  for later. They had even gathered a few frogs because Tommy's mama,  the midwife, Cary, liked frog legs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow Tommy wondered if the fish would keep because it was turning hot  again and they were having to haul around this beat-up, big-tittied  white woman. What in heaven's name were they going to do with her?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTommy thought: Her hair is so long and red and wild it looks like  tumbling fire. He smiled to himself. Good Lord, he had seen fish rain  from the skies and he had seen a white woman's tits. It had been a  special day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Miss Sunset, I haul you around like this, they gonna kill me,\" Uncle  Riley said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Not with me with you they won't.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunset heard her mouth say the right things, but she felt as if it  were all a dream. She scratched a place behind her ear with the  barrel of the .38.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Missy, they ain't gonna believe me. They ain't gonna believe you.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"They'll believe me.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"My cousin Jim, he just seen a white woman bending over in her yard,  taking hanging clothes from a basket, and though there wasn't nothing  to see cause she had her clothes on and he was up on the road, a  white man seen him look at her, and for that, the word got around and  them Kluxers took Jim out and castrated him, poured turpentine on  thecuts.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I tell you, it'll be okay.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What's your husband, Mr. Pete, gonna say?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"He ain't gonna say nothing, Uncle Riley. I blew his brains out.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Oh, my goodness.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Take me to my mother-in-law's.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Sure you want to go to your mama-in-law's?\" Uncle Riley said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"My daughter's there. Ain't got nowhere else to go.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Don't know Miss Marilyn gonna take kindly to you shooting her boy.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Oh, God, what is Karen  going to think?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"She surely loves her daddy.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"She does.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"They gonna castrate me and my boy.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"No, they're not. I'll see to it. For heaven's sake, Uncle Riley,  I've known you all my life. Your wife helped deliver my baby.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"White folks forget them things when they want to. And with this  Depression on, people just meaner anyhow.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe storm had come so fast and furious, it was hard to accept all the  sunlight and heat, but already the fish in the back of the wagon were  beginning to smell.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe leather harnesses creaked and the oat-and-hay-stoked bellies of  the mules made strange gurgling and trumpeting sounds. From time to  time the mules lifted their tails and farted or did their business,  jerked their heads and snatched at greenery, and there was plenty of  it, because the trail was narrow and the limbs of trees poked out  over it, tempting the mules with their leaves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe wagon squeaked and jostled along the muddy road and the steam  from the mud drying rose up in thin wisps and there was a smell like  pottery firing in a kiln. The sun burned and gnawed at Sunset's  wounds and bruises.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I feel like I'm gonna pass out,\" Sunset said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Don't do that, now, Miss Sunset. It bad enough you near naked riding  along with a nigger, you don't need to have your head on my shoulder.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunset dipped her head and the feeling passed. When she sat back up  and started to wipe her forehead with the back of her hand, she  realized the gun was still in it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Maybe I ought to leave this with you?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"No, ma'am. You don't want to leave that gun with me. Next thing I  know, I'm the one done shot him.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'll explain.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"White folks find him dead, then see me, they gonna want a nigger  anyhow. They see Mr. Pete's gun in my wagon, and him being a lawman  and all, me and this boy be strung up faster than you can say, 'Let's  get us a nigger.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"All right,\" Sunset said. \"I thank you and Tommy, I truly do.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Besides, you might need that gun when you tell Miss Marilyn what you  done did. And you don't need it for her, you might need it for her  husband, Mr. Jones.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"When I tell my daughter, I might want to use it on myself.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Don't talk like that now.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I can't believe I did it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"He beat on you like that, Miss Sunset, he deserved killing. I ain't  got no truck with a man beats on a woman. You done what you had to  do.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I could have just shot him in the leg or the foot, I guess.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You done what you had to do.\" Uncle Riley studied her face. \"Damn,  Miss Sunset, ain't seen a beating that bad since he whupped up on  Three-Fingered Jack. You remember that?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I do.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Boy, he beat that man like he stole something.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"He did. My husband's girlfriend.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Guess I ought not to have brought that up.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"He taught me how to shoot, Uncle Riley. Can you believe that? Taught  me how to shoot a pistol, shotgun and rifle. Taught me until he  thought maybe I was getting too good. After we married, he didn't  want me to do nothing...I can't believe I shot him. I could have just  got hit and he'd have got what he wanted and it'd been over. Wouldn't  have been the first time. Karen would have a daddy. Thing is, though,  he could have had what he wanted without all that, Uncle Riley. I'd  have given in without all that. All he'd have to have done was talk  sweet. But he liked it rough, even if he didn't have to. I think he  was sweet to his girlfriends, but me, he beat.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Don't talk to me about that, girl. I don't need to hear about it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"He was bad enough about such, but when he drank, he was mean as a  cottonmouth.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Your hair sure is red,\" Tommy said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Damn, boy,\" Uncle Riley said. \"Miss Sunset don't need you talking  about her hair right now. Get on back there and sort them fish out or  something.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"They all the same.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, count them, boy.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's all right, Uncle Riley. Yeah, Tommy. It's red. My mama used to  say red as sunset, so that's what people call me.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"That ain't your name?\" Tommy asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It is now. In the Bible they wrote Carrie Lynn Beck. But everyone  called me Sunset. Got married I became Jones.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSunset burst into tears.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Go on back there now and sit down,\" Uncle Riley told Tommy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I didn't do nothing,\" Tommy said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Boy, you want your ass shined? Go back there.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTommy moved back a ways, sat down amidst the fish. They were still  damp and wet against his pants and he didn't like it, but he sat. He  knew he had pushed about as far as he could push, and the next push  the wagon would stop and he'd have his daddy's hand across the seat  of his pants, or worse, he'd have to go break off his own switch for  his daddy to use.","brand":"Vintage Crime\/Black Lizard","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302399922405,"sku":"NP9780375719226","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375719226.jpg?v=1767737542","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/sunset-and-sawdust-isbn-9780375719226","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}