Of Mice and Minestrone by Joe R. Lansdale, Kathleen Kent, Kasey Lansdale

Hap is a young white boy who has Leonard, a black young man, as a best friend.  They have several adventures together.  Many of them includes fights.  These guys are tough and don't back down.

Tachyon Publications and Edelweiss let me read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published April 30th.

The laws have changed and the black can now enter restaurants they were banned from before.  But the attitudes haven't changed.  They get nasty comments.  Some people don't want to serve Leonard but they do.

This is an anthology of stories.  Two of them stood out to me.   One was about boxing.  The owner paid them to fight the men they were training.  When they are called again to spar, the young man really has no fight in him.  They plan to put him in a fight with someone who could kill him.  They know what will happen, so Leonard steps in for Ty.  The owner doesn't like that but he does have to have the fight.  Leonard wins and when he asks for the prize money they refuse to pay him.  The beaten fighter decks him, raids his wallet, takes his share of the money and gives the rest to Leonard.  Leonard gives it to Ty for college.

The other story I liked was about a camping trip.  Leonard is back from Vietnam and the other man just got out of jail.  They are not good boys but they have good hearts.

Besides the stories,  the last part of the book is full of Southern recipes.  They are down home recipes so they should be good.