In the bounty hunter drama The Thicket, award-winning novelist Joe R. Lansdale lets loose like never before, in a rip-roaring adventure equal parts True Grit and Stand by Me: Jack Parker thought he’d already seen his fair share of tragedy. His grandmother was killed in a farm accident when he was barely five years old. His parents have just succumbed to the smallpox epidemic sweeping turn-of-the-century East Texas—orphaning him and his younger sister, Lula.
Then a travelling group of bank robbers murder Jack’s grandfather and kidnap his sister Lula. So Jack enlists the only people he can: a bounty hunter dwarf named Shorty, a grave-digging son of an ex-slave named Eustace, and a street-smart woman-for-hire named Jimmie Sue who’s come into some very intimate knowledge about the bandits. Together the rag-tag group trail the group of criminals into the Big Thicket where they hope to rescue Lula and collect the bounty on the heads of the bandits. Soon they discover these are not your run of the mill bank robbers. They are vicious and sadistic killers and the prospect of rescuing Lula unharmed looks bleak. In the throes of being civilized, East Texas is still a wild, feral place. Oil wells spurt liquid money from the ground. But as Jack’s about to find out, blood and redemption rule supreme.
The Thicket is a mystery/suspense novel written by American author Joe R. Lansdale. It was released by Mulholland Books on September 10, 2013. The title refers to Big Thicket, a heavily forested area in Southeast Texas. This book was selected by the Library Journal as one of the best historical fiction books of 2013. It has been made into a feature film starring Peter Dinklage and Juliette Lewis.
