“Rusty Puppy” 
by Joe R. Lansdale
(288 pages, Mullholland Books, $26)

Joe R. Lansdale has a wicked way with words.

Of the many memorable passages in “Rusty Puppy,” his new Hap and Leonard novel, not one of them can be reprinted in a family newspaper.

Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, small-town East Texas private detectives, say the filthiest things. Some of it is good-natured banter between buddies; the rest is don’t-mess-with-me trash talk.

And they don’t just talk dirty. They fight dirty, too.

One almost feels guilty enjoying their raw, rollicking adventures. But Lansdale, an Edgar Award-winning writer from Nacogdoches, has a way of winning readers over with his deceptively elegant brand of “redneck noir.”

“Rusty Puppy” is the 10th Hap and Leonard novel in a series that also includes three novellas, three short-story collections and a TV show.

Hap and Leonard are lifelong best friends who see themselves as brothers — even though on the surface they’re so very different: Hap, the narrator, is a good-old-boy liberal. Leonard is black, gay and politically conservative.

The plot of “Rusty Puppy” involves a crooked police force and two men who are beaten to death. But these ingredients are what readers will remember more: a foul-mouthed little girl from the projects, Leonard’s way of winning a war of words with a bar owner, and the meaning of the phrase “Rusty Puppy.”