Kindness Goes Unpunished: A Walt Longmire Mystery (Walt Longmire Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Craig Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2007 | Series: Walt Longmire Mysteries

Walt Longmire returns for his third adventure but this time he is in the City of Brotherly Love, where no act of kindness goes unpunished

Walt has been the sheriff in Wyoming’s Absaroka County for twenty-four years, where his wit and charm have helped him solve many crimes. But that can’t prepare him for the savage attack on his daughter, Cady, a Philadelphia lawyer who has unwittingly become embroiled in a political cover-up. As Walt and his best friend, Henry Standing Bear, scour the city for clues, he gets help from his deputy Victoria Moretti and her family of Philly police. But Longmire wasn’t born yesterday. He’s willing to pull out all the stops to find Cady’s attacker and show the big city that this old-timer has a few moves left in his saddlebag of tricks. Those who enjoy Tony Hillerman and James Lee Burke will delight in Johnson’s newest Sheriff Longmire adventure.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Johnson's appealing third Walt Longmire mystery (after 2006's Death Without Company), the Wyoming sheriff is drawn into a messy situation in the City of Brotherly Love when his daughter Cady's ex-boyfriend is killed a few days after Longmire accuses him of being behind the assault that left Cady, a Philadelphia lawyer, comatose. Longmire's deputy, Victoria Moretti, soon arrives on the scene as her family of Philly cops tries to decide whether to suspect Longmire of murder or ask his help with the investigation. Everyone in the cast appears to be a stereotype of some sort—the Italian police clan, the Salvadoran drug dealer, the Irish publican and Longmire's eternally wise and mystical Cheyenne friend, Henry Standing Bear—but Johnson plays it for the right kind of laughs. When someone introduces Henry as Longmire's "Native American sidekick," Longmire ripostes that it's the other way around. The quick pace and tangled web of interconnected crimes will keep readers turning pages. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Absaroka County, Wyoming, Sheriff Walt Longmire goes on a rare road trip in this third entry in a consistently entertaining series. The trip has two purposes: visit Walt's daughter, Cady, a lawyer in Philadelphia, and support his best friend, Henry Standing Bear, who is the guest of honor at the opening of an exhibit of Native American photographs. Plans change quickly when Cady, the victim of a vicious attack, hovers near death. After Cady's former boyfriend and the assumed perpetrator of the attack is killed, Walt takes matters into his own hands, with the help of Henry and Victoria Moretti, Walt's deputy, a Philadelphia native who returns home to ride shotgun. There is a built-in problem whenever a mystery author takes his series on the road: without the defining landscape, the characters often seem stripped of their personalities. That's the case here, to some extent, though Johnson uses the fish-out-of-water theme effectively, setting up Walt as a kind of McCloud in the 1970s Dennis Weaver television show. Satisfying as road trips go, but fans will be glad to have Walt back in Wyoming. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (March 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670031577
• ISBN-13: 978-0670031573
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #229,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Craig Johnson has received both critical and popular praise for his novels The Cold Dish, Death Without Company, Kindness Goes Unpunished, Another Man's Moccasins and The Dark Horse. All five novels have been made selections by the Independent Booksellers Association, and The Cold Dish was a DILYS Award Finalist and was translated into French in 2009 as Little Bird and was just named one of the top ten mysteries of the year by Lire magazine and won the Prix du Roman Noir as the best mystery novel translated into French for 2010.

Death Without Company was selected by Booklist as one of the top-ten mysteries of 2006, won the Wyoming Historical Society's fiction book of the year. The short story, Old Indian Trick, won the Tony Hillerman Mystery Short Story Award and appeared in Cowboys & Indians Magazine.

Kindness Goes Unpunished, the third in the Walt Longmire series, was number 38 on the American Bookseller's Association's hardcover best seller list.

Another Man's Moccasins, was the recipient of Western Writer's of America's Spur Award as Novel of the Year and the Mountains and Plains Book of the Year.

The Dark Horse, the fifth in the series has garnered starred reviews by all four prepublication review services, one of the only novels to receive that honor and was named by Publisher's Weekly as one of the top one hundred books of the year.

Craig lives with his wife Judy on their ranch in Ucross, Wyoming, population 25.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book in a great series., May 6, 2007

By 

L. J. Roberts (Oakland, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kindness Goes Unpunished: A Walt Longmire Mystery (Walt Longmire Mysteries) (Hardcover)

First Sentence: "I didn't wear my gun."

Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire joins his friend Henry Standing Bear on a trip to Philadelphia for Henry's photographic exhibit at the museum and for Walt to visit his daughter, Cady, and meet her boyfriend. Cady is attacked and near death and the boyfriend's wealthy parents are giving him an alibi. Cady's boyfriend is tossed off a bridge in what can't possibly be a suicide and Walt is going to find out what is going on.

Okay, so it starts with one very big coincidence, but who cares. There are wonderful characters; Walt, Henry, Myra the dispatcher, Dog the...dog, and the entire Moretti family; great dialogue; excellent sense of place both Wyoming and the fun of experiencing Philadelphia with Walt and Henry. Add in some flirtation, a dash of sex, the emotion of Walt fearing for his daughter's survival, some Indian mysticism, and the action of tracking down the bad guys and there is one really good book. This is a great series. If you've not tried it yet, start at the beginning and enjoy.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book and Writer, July 17, 2008

By 

A. Roberts "Avid Reader" (Wyoming) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Kindness Goes Unpunished: A Walt Longmire Mystery (Hardcover)

I had skipped this book originally as some people I talked to said it wasn't as good as his other books and they didn't like the big city setting. So I read his new one and with Cady recovering an injury I got curious so decided to go back and read this one. I rather liked it and I actually think reading his newest one first made this one more interesting. I think we get to know Walt even better in the newest book and so I saw him in this book as tough but yet we see his more sensitive side when Cady is injured. I thought the book flowed smoothly in the events that followed her injury and I actually enjoyed the different setting for him of the big city. There was so much that the author could do with that. I do enjoy the setting of Wyoming because Walt is more comfortable there but this book was just a change of pace and I really did like it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too many characters, flaw in the plot, January 7, 2011

By 

Jill.edit - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kindness Goes Unpunished: A Walt Longmire Mystery (Walt Longmire Mysteries) (Hardcover)

It could have been a good read (good listen, actually). I hoped it would be, because I like Walt and The Indian Nation. Okay, so they're in Philadelphia. That's all right because we've known that The Greatest Legal Mind of Our Time--Walt's daughter--lives in Philadelphia. But it was a bit much when Walt and Henry drove from Wyoming to Philly (without breaking a sweat) because Walt's collection of photos is being shown there. Isn't that convenient. See Greatest Legal Mind, above.

I lost track of the plot and characters about a third of the way through. When Walt was seriously injured twice and kept on truckin' all superhuman, I raised my eyebrows. Around this time I realized my mind was wandering and I had to backtrack and listen again to keep track of the plot and characters as much as I could.

Here's the thing: A simple forensic question was never asked. It couldn't be, because most of the book and three or four murders wouldn't have happened if the issue had been addressed. It itched, right up until--you guessed it--the answer was crucial to solving the mystery.

I listened to the entire book because it was narrated by the great George Guidall. He could read the phone book, as they say, and I'd listen all the way through.