Cold in July - Joe R. Lansdale This hard-nosed thriller by Joe R. Lansdale is easy to dismiss as a pulp fiction suspense novel and nothing more. Yet the author is actually writing a haunting character study about fatherhood and all the problems it entail. This is the genius of Lansdale. He writes thrillers that can be read for pure entertainment yet at the end you are thinking twice about what you read and what it means. And, as usual, he never pulls punches. While not as riveting as the Hap and Leonard novels, Cold in July is still very memorable.