Customer Reviews

Kindness Goes Unpunished: A Walt Longmire Mystery (Walt Longmire Mysteries)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I love Johnson's series. I love his characters: Sheriff Walt Longmire; his best friend, Henry Standing Bear; his tart-tongued deputy, Victoria Moretti; and I love the Wyoming setting. That said, this third book in the series moves events largely to the city of Philadelphia, where Walt's beloved daughter, Cady, is a lawyer, and where Victoria and her rather large extended family of cops is from. Sometimes I'm not too happy when a series I read largely for descriptions of the setting takes such a chance, but Johnson pulls it off here. His descriptions of Philadelphia allow us to see the city through an inexperienced visitor, Walt, and make it both a welcoming and a threatening place.

When Cady is assaulted and put into a coma, Walt divides his time between waiting at her bedside and conducting his own investigation into what might have happened. This is a good book with the vivid characters and their relationships at center stage. Still, I can't help but hope things will be moving back West for further books in the series.

Every book in the Walt Longmire series has a line in it that makes me laugh out loud, I am not going to tell you want leads up to it, but when you come across "Hi ho Creampuff" I dare you not to giggle audibly and have those around you turn their heads in wonder.

Walt and Henry Standing Bear, also referred to as the Cherokee Nation, head to Philadelphia for an opening at the museum of an exhibit displaying Henry's Native American photographs. Not all goes as planned when Cady, Walt's daughter - the greatest legal mind of our time - is seriously injured and days later, her ex-boyfriend is found dead. As Cady lays motionless in a coma, Walt, Henry, Dog and Victoria put their minds and talents together to solve this twisted tale of greed and lies.

Holy Terror Victoria Moretti comes out to help and is in her element here in Philadelphia. This is her town and with the help of her mother and her brothers, this town will not rest until Walt unwinds the story of what put Cady in this state and who exactly was the reason behind it. You will also giggle over Craig Johnson's verbage of Vic the Father, Vic the Son and Vic the Holy Terror. Where he comes up with this stuff, I will never know.

To say that Walt is out of his element here is no gentle understatement. You can put a cowboy in the city, but you cannot take the country out of the boy. So with the only skills he knows, Walt sets out to make his own rules and bring small town justice to the big city.

There is a good twist in this story, not one that you couldn't see coming eventually, but still a complication that will make the future books that much more interesting. Stay tuned and watch Walt wiggle around with this one.

The final scene of this story is not to be missed and please do not read the ending first. For all Walt's toughness and bravado, he is just a giant marshmallow in a cowboy hat and boots; and you will love him even more for it.

This is a series not to be missed.

Walt Longmire goes to the big city in this one. In some ways, the story was intriguing. In other ways, it was a turn-off for me. Perhaps because I only read novels late at night when my brain is shutting down, the plot seemed too hard to follow, with too many characters. (This from someone who generally dislikes simple plots and too few characters.) Or maybe it was just too implausible that the sheriff from Wyoming and his sidekick Indian companion should stumble into a plot in Plilly that ultimately involved horses and Indians.

In short, better than your average murder mystery, but not 5-star.

I've been a fan of mysteries for years, and when I was a kid I was a big fan of the TV show McCloud. You remember, Dennis Weaver riding a horse down Broadway chasing the bad guys, blazing away with his .45? Tipping his hat to the ladies, calling them Ma'am, and snapping off country witticisms every 10 minutes or so. Yeah, that McCloud. Well, this time around, author Craig Johnson has redone the classic fish-out-of-water tale, and used his main character, Sheriff Walt Longmire, as the main character in a new version. Walt's in Philadelphia, city of Brotherly Love, visiting his daughter. She's a lawyer in town, but of course she's been hit over the head and is in a coma, and Walt suspects her slimy boyfriend, another lawyer. Before Walt can do much more than talk to the boyfriend, someone throws the chief suspect off of a bridge, and Walt begins to receive cryptic messages threatening him if he doesn't leave well enough alone and go back to Wyoming.

This is a very good, well-written book. I'd never heard of author Johnson before: I'll be looking for his other books.

Having 'signed on' at the beginning of this wild adventure, with "The Cold Dish", and then hitching a ride on "Death Without Company", I can honestly say that I thought this 3rd installment in the Walt Longmire series was the BEST yet! Even though the story takes place in Philly, rather than Johnson's usual setting of Absaroka County, Wyoming, I did not feel that his fine cast of characters lost anything due to the transition ~ if anything, I felt that the change of venue lent an added sense of strength to the characters, without the breath-taking scenery or small-town politics stealing any of their thunder. The fact that Sheriff Longmire and his deputy, Victoria, finally took a big 'first step' in their long-running but seemingly nonexistent relationship was a big plus for me, since I had been "rooting" for them since the beginning! I liked the way that Walt was kind of attracted to Lena (Vic's mother)also, and how he could look at the mother and see the daughter, and vice versa. This development added an extra dimension to the story; an extra 'layer to the fabric' of the tale being woven. I can't wait for the next installment in this excellent series to become available ~ superb craftsmanship by a great new author!!

This is another excellent story by Craig Johnston, this time set in Philadelphia instead of Northern Wyoming. His main characters, Sheriff Longmire, Henry "Indian Nation" Standing Bear, Cady, Longmire's daughter and Vic the "Holy Terror" are all there, as is the wry, tongue in cheek humor. It's an excellent story that tugged at my heart, what with the Sheriff's daughter in the hospital in a coma due to a head injury, mainly because I could relate to his pain having a daughter of that age myself. But, this is an excellent story with the action paced events, the plot twists, the piecing together of what is really happening, and the exciting finish. It is all there just like Craig's past stories. One thing that I would recommend, for those readers new to Craig Johnson's books, read his other books first. Otherwise you may get lost at the beginning, and get turned off. I can't wait for Craig's next book.

If you haven't read a mystery by Craig Johnson, you are in for a real treat! But read "Cold Dish" first, a doozey! His style, plotting and fictional sleuth,Walt Longmire, drive the reader to read all of his books. Craig Johnson has a writing style somewhat like Tony Hillerman. Tony has passed on so be consoled there's Craig Johnson books to look forward to!