Review: THE DARK HORSE by Craig Johnson

Mary Barsad confessed to killing her husband, Wade, after he set fire to their barn and burned all her horses to death. And who can blame her! But for some reason Sheriff Walt Longmire doesn't believe she did it. So he goes undercover (read: people start figuring out who he is within five minutes) in the town of Absalom, Wyoming, to find out who did kill Wade, and why they framed Mary for his murder.

You know that town from the movie Unforgiven, Big Whiskey? Well, Absalom is kind of like that. It is godforsaken. No one wants to be there, even the people who live there. It's like the gate to hell ("Abandon hope, all ye who enter here"). Not the greatest place to live, but a REALLY great setting for a novel. Combine that with Walt's flashbacks of Mary Barsad's stay in his jail, and The Dark Horse definitely has the feeling of a western noir. It's very dark, but balanced nicely by Walt's trademark self-deprecating humor.

So basically, I really liked The Dark Horse. The regular gang—Henry, Vic, Lucien, Rose, etc.—aren't in this volume very much, but the new characters Craig Johnson introduces are full of personality and interesting. There are also flashbacks, and as anyone who reads this blog regularly knows, I'm not a fan of the flashbacks and backstory. I usually skim over them, which is exactly what I did in the previous Longmire novel, Another Man's Moccasins. However, the flashbacks in The Dark Horse actually aren't unnecessary backstory; they're where about 90% of the detecting happens, and I really wanted to find out why Walt was convinced Mary didn't kill her husband. I can also see where breaking up that section into small segments throughout the novel told the story more effectively than if Johnson had written the book with a more linear timeline. So this is one of the few times where I can wholeheartedly endorse flashback scenes.

Another aspect of The Dark Horse I found really interesting is that Johnson kind of takes a What If scenario with modern medicine. Usually his mystery plots are pretty straight-forward and based on things that everyone already knows is a problem: human trafficking, drugs, etc. etc. But in The Dark Horse, Johnson lays out a scenario where zolpidem is used to commit a murder. Kinda creepy.

Unfortunately, the last fifty pages of the book were a major drag. It seemed like Walt just rode around on a horse for a reeeeeally long time. And the conclusion was a joke—the book just abruptly ends, after which there's an annoying epilogue.

But overall The Dark Horse is a good novel with one of Johnson's more twisty mysteries. Can you imagine the type of person who would set fire to a barn and just let the horses inside it burn while he watched? That's a bad un.



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Review: ANOTHER MAN'S MOCCASINS by Craig Johnson

When the body of a young woman is found off of I-25, within spitting distance of an underpass where a homeless man with obvious psychological problems is hiding, the murder seems like an open-and-shut case. But not to Sheriff Walt Longmire. Despite the fact that the man in question, Virgil White Buffalo, attacked him, Walt isn't so sure Virgil would kill anyone without a reason. And when a photograph of Walt taken in Vietnam is found among the victim's possessions, he knows there's something more to the woman's story—he just has to figure out why she's in Wyoming and how she's connected to his past.

This is the fourth (I think? Yes, fourth) book in the Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson, and it's a quick read. I enjoyed it, even though I do have to admit I completely skipped the backstory scenes set in Vietnam. You know me—I don't have the patience for backstory. I did read the first few, and young-Walt and -Henry were adorbs, but I have to say the novel didn't suffer for my having skipped over those scenes at all.

Okay, I'm about to get spoilery, so if you can't handle gigantic hints about who the murderer is, skip the next paragraph.

Another Man's Moccasins is one of those mysteries where whodunnit is obvious pretty early on, but Johnson tricks both Walt and the reader into questioning their instincts by using their insecurities and sympathies against them. I have to say, it was pretty well-done. All of the main suspects are strangers, people passing through Absaroka County on their way to somewhere else. All of them have some history with violence, and two of them are part of racially discriminated groups—Indian and Vietnamese. Is Walt targeting the other two suspects more than Virgil because he sympathizes with a fellow Vietnam vet (as Henry says after Virgil's arrested, "He's one of us," and he doesn't mean Indian. Cue band of brothers reference), or because his experiences in Vietnam have prejudiced him against Vietnamese people? Some of the new guys on Walt's staff assume it's the latter, which kind of hurts his feelings. So he spends the rest of the book asking his friends if they think he's prejudiced, and I would be tempted to say the novel is about prejudice if the mystery hadn't shook out the way it did. Instead, I think the point is that you shouldn't judge someone's reactions as unreasonable or crazy or prejudiced until you know where they're coming from.

Anyway, the mystery in Another Man's Moccasins is pretty straight-forward, which is probably why this book is so short. Even if you don't skip the Vietnam scenes, it's still less than 300 pages. But it gives Johnson an opportunity to explore the effects of war on Walt, his BFF Henry Standing Bear, his mentor and the former Absaroka County sheriff, Lucian, and Virgil.

Another of the things I really enjoyed about Another Man's Moccasins is that Johnson's background in playwriting really shines through, especially in the second half of the book. The climax is perfect: spooky, dramatic, with an almost Shakespearean conclusion. And the book plays around with concepts of perception and knowledge that demonstrates a more sophisticated use of storytelling than in the previous Longmire books.

So as Walt would say, Yep. Another good book in the series.



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Review: KINDNESS GOES UNPUNISHED by Craig Johnson

Walt Longmire and his bestie, Henry Standing Bear, drive from Durant, Wyoming, to Philadelphia to visit Walt's daughter, Cady. When Walt gets there, however, Cady is too busy to meet him for dinner. Like, really, your dad just drove 2,000 miles to see you and you can't take off work early? ANYway, that night Cady is pushed down a staircase and nearly dies. Naturally, being a cop, Walt starts investigating. With the help of Henry and the Moretti clan (the family of his deputy, Vic), he discovers a web of City Hall corruption and drug dealing connected to his daughter's attacker.

I'll be honest, I wasn't crazy into Kindness Goes Unpunished. Maybe it was the setting or maybe it was the fact that I found the plot nearly incomprehensible, but uhg. Just thinking about the last quarter of the story makes me TIRED. Also, by weird coincidence Kindness Goes Unpunished is the second book this month I read with a coma patient in it. Writing protip: talking to people in a coma isn't that exciting.

So, yeah. It wasn't a DNF but it tested the bounds of believability and patience for me. However, I do have to say that I find the differences between Cady in the Longmire books and Cady in the Longmire TV show interesting. In the books, she's a high-powered, career-focused attorney with her own life. That's obvious even though the story is told from Walt's point of view. In the TV show, she lives in Durant and her life revolves around her dad and "taking care of him" after her mother's death (even though it feels closer to nagging). She had some sort of job before she moved back to Durant, but I'm not clear on what that was exactly. In the second season, she starts working as a waitress at Henry's bar, The Red Pony, so her dad can lecture her about hanging around drunk people.

Now I know in order for Cady to be on the show regularly she has to be in Durant a lot, but I find it interesting that the TV show made her a lot less independent and, well, ADULT than the Cady in the books. At one point on the show, Branch, Walt's most annoying deputy (whom I think is modeled after Turk from The Cold Dish), asks, "It's 10 o'clock. Do you know where your daughter is, Walt?" You mean his 30-year-old daughter who can go anywhere she wants and is capable of taking care of herself, that daughter?

Even Cady's affairs have something to do with Walt: she starts dating Branch in secret because he's running against Walt in the sheriff election and she doesn't want Walt to get upset. EYEROLL 1. Uncomfortable Oedipal associations; 2. I think Walt can deal with who his daughter is dating because he's a grown-ass man and not her high school ex.

Basically what I'm saying is I find Cady to be a nearly intolerable character on the TV show. I was actually dreading her appearance in the books; but in the books she's an independent adult who obviously loves her dad but is living her own life, and she's pretty awesome. Furthermore, Walt is definitely into giving her her own space and not telling her what to do or who to date. Complete one-eighty from the TV show. Needless to say, I prefer the books' version of these two characters and their relationship.



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Review: DEATH WITHOUT COMPANY by Craig Johnson

Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire is still recovering from the events of The Cold Dish, but at least he's out of the house and voluntarily speaking to people, so that's a step in the right direction. Meanwhile, former Absaroka County sheriff and Walt's mentor, Lucien, keeps telling him there's something fishy going on at the nursing home. Walt's like, "Whatever you say, Agatha Christie;" but then one of the nursing home residents dies and Lucien insists it was murrrderrr. Walt agrees to investigate out of respect for Lucien, and winds up opening a whole worm-filled can of ugly secrets he didn't want to know.

I know when I reviewed The Cold Dish I was kind of like, "Sigh," and "Meh," but then I realized I was really missing my guys. That would be Walt and his BFF, Henry Standing Bear. At what point they became "my guys," I'm not sure, but I decided to read the second book in the series, Death Without Company, immediately after finishing the first. It's been more than a decade since I've done something like that, and I'm not sorry I did now.

Death Without Company is much better than The Cold Dish. For one, it's shorter. A mystery series with books that keep getting shorter? I must be in a reading utopia right now. For two, a lot more things happen in the course of Death Without Company than in The Cold Dish. Walt is on go mode for the entire novel, what with people getting murdered, and attacked, and the police department setting up sting operations, and Lucien being a curmudgeonly nuisance, and suspects escaping, and the new deputy showing up.

Like in The Cold Dish, the mystery is kind of depressing. It hinges on a star-crossed love affair between Mari Baroja and Lucien, and the shitty life Mari had after her family separated them. But also like in The Cold Dish, that aspect of the story was balanced nicely with snappy dialog and Walt's wry sense of humor. As usual, Henry gets the best lines in the book. My favorite was,

"How many murders have we had in this county since you became sheriff?"
I counted up quickly, then recounted. "Five."
"Three in the last month?"
"Yep."
He picked up the sandwich and looked at it. "You should retire... quickly."

Of course, the resolving of the plot depends on a series of incredible coincidences, and I guessed who the murderer was almost immediately (though not their motive), but those are minor quibbles.

One scene that did really bother me, though, was when Lucien told Walt what happened to Mari's husband, Charlie Nurburn. It was described in incredibly graphic detail—how? Lucien wasn't there, and I doubt any woman would have told him what happened to her at that level. Also, why? I didn't need to know most of that to understand what happened and it didn't drive the story. None of the other acts of violence in the book were treated to such highly expressive and intense description, even when Walt himself is attacked, so it seemed like a gratuitous depiction of violence against women with a tone of grotesque fascination to boot. Dislike.

Aside from that, Death Without Company was a perfectly enjoyable mystery novel. I'll definitely be reading the next book in the series.



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Review: THE COLD DISH by Craig Johnson

The biggest crimes the town of Durant, Wyoming, usually sees are escaped ranch animals and drunk cowboys. But when a young man convicted in the gang rape of a Cheyenne girl is found in a sheep field, Sheriff Walt Longmire senses his days of phoning it in are over.

The Cold Dish is the first book in the Longmire series. It's not as good as Hell is Empty, but that's a good thing—after seven years and six books, one would hope that an author's work would improve, right? I basically got really impatient reading The Cold Dish because: 1. it's the first book in the series, which means there's a lot of exposition about things I'm already familiar with from watching the TV show; and 2. it took me forever to get through. This is mainly my own fault: I started it when I was busy and lucky to carve out fifteen minutes of uninterrupted reading time. Unfortunately, this isn't the type of book you can just pick up and get into right away, so I struggled through the first half and almost DNF'd it.

The Cold Dish finally starts to get interesting around the 150 page mark, when Walt goes onto the rez with his BFF, Henry Standing Bear, to question the father of the girl who was raped. Yes, it took him that long. The father's not a suspect because he can't walk, and Walt doesn't have any jurisdiction on the Indian reservation, but still. When he visits, the girl's dad gives Walt the legendary Cheyenne Rifle of the Dead, which was used in the Battle of the Little Bighorn and, it's implied, killed General Custer. The rifle is haunted by the Old Cheyenne who sometimes use it to call people to the land of the dead. Intriguing, no? Then things get really exciting because more of the rapists start dying.

So I did like the second half of the novel, but it was a long dang walk up to that point. On the plus side, even with the slow start, The Cold Dish definitely has its redeeming qualities. First of all, despite the dark subject matter, there's a lot of humor in the novel. Craig Johnson is as familiar with the universe of rural Wyoming as Jane Austen was with the gentle society of Regency England, and takes a similar tolerant-yet-ironic tone when describing the characters and foibles that populate his world. Aside from Walt, the secondary characters are awesome: Henry of the non-contractions has a very droll sense of humor, and gets most of the best lines in the book; and there's also Lucien, the former sheriff of Absaroka County and Walt's mentor, who's a crazy kamikaze badass living in a nursing home. Really all the main secondary characters are very well-realized except for Vonnie, but that's another story.

As I read The Cold Dish, I couldn't help but compare it to The Cuckoo's Calling. Unexpectedly, the two novels have a lot in common: they're both debut mystery novels that are reinterpretations of the classic noir set-up, with a down-on-his-luck, depressed, ex-military hero who's practically homeless; tons of literary references; and walking and talking. What is it with the walking and talking?! But The Cold Dish feels like a more original and organic twist, is more fully populated with characters and locations, has a better mystery (although the conclusion still made me roll my eyes), and the literary references are much more clever and integrated into the story. So I would say overall The Cold Dish is the better book.

Even though this book didn't wow me like Hell is Empty did, I'll definitely keep reading the Longmire series because I think Johnson is a great writer and the characters he's created are awesome.




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Review of HELL IS EMPTY by Craig Johnson

"Hell is empty, and the devils are here." -William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire is on a routine prisoner exchange with the FBI when things go from boring to FUBAR: all the prisoners escape, taking one FBI agent as a hostage and shooting everyone else. To make matters worse, the escape occurs just as the worst blizzard in decades hits the Bighorn Mountains. For some reason the convicts, led by schizophrenic sociopath Raynaud Shade, head higher into the mountains, and Walt is the only person who can go after them, accompanied by a copy of Dante's Inferno and an Indian named Virgil White Buffalo.

Hell is Empty is crazy, you guys. CRAZY. It's so mind-bendy that there were times when I put the book down and I found myself wanting to ask someone, "Is this Real Life?" And I sure as heck didn't know what was "real" or not in the book.

I began Hell is Empty with the expectation that it would be a police procedural--a type of book I don't find terribly interesting, but my mom loaned it to me and I was in one of those moods where I was like, "WHAT THE HELL, I'll just DNF it and move on with my life." (Don't you just love going into a book with high expectations?) After about fifty pages, it quickly became apparent that 1. this book was way more literary than I ever expected, and 2. weird things were in store for Walt Longmire.

Hell is Empty is based on Dante's Inferno. This is not immediately apparent. Saizarbitoria, one of Walt's deputies, is trying to round-out his spotty education by reading books recommended to him by people in the sheriff's department (list at the back of the book). The most well-read of the bunch, dispatcher Ruby, recommends Inferno, and Saizarbitoria brings it along with him to kill hours during the prisoner transport. Somehow, the copy gets transferred to Walt on his journey into the Underworld Bighorn Mountains and Inferno is increasingly quoted as the book goes on.

Yet the journey Walt goes on feels completely organic to the plot, even though the challenges he faces become increasingly incredible. Walt's path on the trail of Shade takes him across examples of greed, lust, fraud, anger, and the other deadly sins. But that's all in a day's work for a sheriff, so I didn't notice or even start thinking about parallels to the Inferno until Virgil showed up. And that's when Craig Johnson really starts messing with your head.

I don't want to make it sound like you have to be familiar with the Inferno to enjoy Hell is Empty--you definitely don't. The story is great all on its own, with incredible, memorable scenes balanced out by Walt's wry sense humor. I'm a total sucker for journey stories as long as they don't go back to the island (like in Pirates of the Caribbean), and I'm happy to report Walt does not do that. Instead, from the moment Walt realizes something's gone wrong with the prisoner exchange, the book is a mano-y-mano match against Raynaud Shade, a more-than-worthy foe.

I also really enjoyed Johnson's writing style. He's not one to spell things out for the reader; you have to exercise a little bit of patience to figure out what's going on sometimes, and that works VERY effectively with the story.

I'd recommend Hell is Empty to just about anyone, from people who enjoy genre fiction like westerns and mysteries to literary fiction fans. I even cried at the end, you guys. This is good stuff.


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