The Dark Horse: A Walt Longmire Mystery Author: Visit Amazon's Craig Johnson Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0143117319 | Format: PDF
The Dark Horse: A Walt Longmire Mystery Description
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In Johnson's superb fifth contemporary mystery to feature Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire (after 2008's
Another Man's Moccasins), Walt has his doubts about Mary Barsad's guilt when she confesses to shooting her husband, Wade, after Wade allegedly burned down their barn with all Mary's horses inside. Even though the crime is out of his jurisdiction in a neighboring county, Walt can't shake the feeling that there's more to Mary's story. Posing as an insurance agent, Walt starts poking around the tiny town of Absalom, whose main attraction are the fights at the local bar. He meets an illegal immigrant bartender with a knack for crime solving, the Barsads' loyal cowhand and some ranchers who may have had their own reasons for wanting Wade dead. Walt digs deep into the dilapidated town's history, unearthing secrets that might be better left buried. Series fans will delight in seeing Walt return to his cowboy roots as he mounts a horse and navigates the sparsely populated state.
8-city author tour.(June)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Bookmarks Magazine
In The Dark Horse, Craig Johnson continues to develop Sheriff Walt Longmire's personality -- he's got a wicked sense of humor that can land him on the wrong side of things -- and to introduce interesting new elements and characters into each installment. Johnson's regional focus -- particularly his ability to evoke the austere, mysterious landscapes of Wyoming -- and a noirish attitude toward crime recalls writer James Lee Burke and the long-running Dave Robicheaux series. With a new deal from Viking following early independent success, Johnson, too, seems poised for a long career atop the genre.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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- Series: A Walt Longmire Mystery
- Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (May 25, 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0143117319
- ISBN-13: 978-0143117315
- Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.6 inches
- Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Late last year, Craig Johnson and his Walt Longmire mysteries came to occupy a rarified space in my world -- a favorite author for whom you wait in anticipation of his next book, looking forward to the moment you get to crack it open and find out what your friends on the page are up to this time. Johnson's mysteries are well structured and compelling, not relying on gimmicks or tricks, but instead on fleshed out characters, snappy dialogue, close observation of human nature, and a vivid landscape that is just as important as any person in the book.
Longmire, the maybe-retiring-in-a-few-years sheriff of fictional Absaroka County, Wyoming, isn't a supercop or a kick-butt guy like Lee Child's Jack Reacher. He's an older guy, a Vietnam vet, and a Wyoming native. He grew up on a ranch, is a widower with one daughter, and a strong sense of justice that is served well by his skills as a steady methodical cop. More than that, he's an interesting person, something of a renaissance man without feeling forced (as Reacher can at times). This is a good thing as the mysteries are all in first person so if we were bored with Walt, we'd have a problem and not much reason to keep reading.
While the Longmire mysteries are well stocked with eccentric characters, it's his two primary sidekicks -- Henry Standing Bear and Victoria "Vic" Moretti -- who stand out. The Bear, aka The Cheyenne Nation, is Walt's oldest and best friend, a fellow vet, and his guide in the Native American reservations and communities. Moretti, his detective, is a transplant from Philadelphia, an excellent cop, and perhaps one of the sexiest and foulest mouthed law enforcement characters in current fiction. In all three cases, the characters have grown and changed over the course of the books.
When I began blogging last June, one of the very first authors I raved about was Craig Johnson. Get ready to listen to more raves because my opinion of him is unchanged.
In this fifth book of the series, we see the Sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming, working undercover as an insurance agent in the tiny, ill-tempered town of Absalom. Absalom resident Wade Barstad, well-known womanizer and jerk-about-town, set fire to his barn. The fire roasted alive his wife's horses, which didn't set too well with Mary. Mary Barstad waited till Wade went to bed. She then proceeded to put six bullets in his head and set fire to the house. When the fire department showed up, Mary confessed to killing her husband. But the sheriff in that county smells a rat, and he soon has Walt Longmire sniffing the very same eau de rongeur. Seeing as how most Absalom residents would just as soon shoot strangers as look at 'em, will Walt have enough time to figure out what really happened?
Although Johnson writes of his corner of Wyoming as if it's a character in and of itself, it's really the two-legged ones for whom you want to read this series. Each a rugged individualist, learning everyone's outlooks on life as well as their relationships with the other characters is the meat and potatoes of these books. The mystery is the huge wedge of lemon meringue pie that puts a satisfied PAID to the entire meal.
It's difficult to write a novel about the West and not have the landscape have its say. Just ask Hillerman or Bowen or Box...or Craig Johnson:
"I thought about how we tilled and cultivated the land, planted trees on it, fenced it, built houses on it, and did everything we could to hold off the eternity of distance-- anything to give the landscape some sort of human scale.
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