UFOs and donuts

Joe R. Lansdale turns out one entertaining novel after another, yet somehow flies under the radar of most readers. His The Donut Legion (2022) is another enjoyable experience.

As the title suggests, the novel is a bit off the wall. There's a ghost, flying saucers, a killer chimpanzee and, of course, lots of donuts.

Charlie Garner is visited one night by his beautiful ex-wife, Meg. Yet it soon becomes clear that she was never really there, although a hint of her perfume remains. When he goes looking for her, he discovers that both she and her new husband have disappeared. Did she somehow get mixed up in a nearby flying saucer cult, into which both people and large sums of money seem to be disappearing?

With assistance from his brother, Felix, a private investigator; Cherry, his brother's girlfriend and an attorney; and Scrappy, a pretty woman pretending to be a newspaper reporter who soon proves she deserves that nickname, Charlie begins digging into what's really going on inside that cult.

This proves to be dangerous business, even after they enlist the local chief of police in their campaign. As for the donuts, it seems the cult gets much of its money from a string of donut shops.

The novel proves to be fun, even as bodies keep piling up.