Showing posts with label Johnson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Johnson. Show all posts

17 August 2014

Crows

I think crows are ugly and noisy. They are good at cleaning up road kill. Craig Johnson's Sheriff Longmire likes crows. There are crows mentioned in the story. Maybe their presence has some meaning. I don't think so.
Johnson
One of my finds at Half Priced Books was a 2012 book by Craig Johnson. Johnson, who says he lives in a town with a population of 27 He is the guy who created Sheriff Walt Longmire. I've enjoyed a couple early books and some of the first A&E episodes of Longmire. (The most recent episodes got too dark and threatening for me to enjoy them.)

Well, I got a deal on As the Crow Flies, a story about the things that kept the good sheriff from attending to the details of his daughter's wedding arrangements. He'd promised, and as a widower, his best helper was his buddy Henry Standing Bear. Oh, and his mother-in-law to be, who turned out to be quite capable of stepping in to compensate for the sheriff who gets pulled into murders on the Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. We all "know" that the county sheriff has no authority on the res or in Montana, but Longmire gets arrested and dragged along to the crime scene by the new tribal chief of police, Lolo Long.

It doesn't help that the FBI gets involved and Chief Long is a rookie chief in over her head. And when the primary suspect is murdered, everything gets more complicated. Especially since the Longmire wedding is fast approaching, and someone is manufacturing "evidence."

Well written? Yes. I laid down to read a few pages before sleep one night and an hour and a half later, I had finished the book without realizing it was nearly midnight. This was another book that kept me so occupied I nearly forgot I was actively reading. Johnson uses events to move the plot forward and he is great at describing action in the present tense. He also uses humor to keep the characters realistic and likable.

After finishing, I was tempted to award Johnson an improbability medal, for his use of a peyote-fueled vision quest, but the evidence revealed by the drug was really only a sidelight to the story.

So, here's another recommendation.
I also recommend that you look at plot summaries for the TV series Longmire. I don't know how involved Johnson is in the script writing (I'd guess only minimally), but if the summary looks good, check it out on A&E. The cast and the acting are good. New Mexico does a good job of standing in for Wyoming.

Have you read As the Crow Flies or another Craig Johnson novel? What did you think of it? Write. Tell this little bit of the world what you thought.

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18 August 2011

Nice doggy. Nice doggy.

I had a busy morning yesterday. After my morning walk, I worked from about 8:00am to 1:30pm. (Working breakfast and working lunch) Things just piled up. I read the headlines and half a dozen articles in the 18 news sources I look at each morning. Found 3 articles that I prepared for the Teaching Comparative blog with bits of commentary and excerpts. I posted 4 excerpts and a comment to the blog that people had sent me. (I aim for one posting each week day, so this was quite unusual.) Then I got carried away trying to explain why the Texas governor is either ignorant or playing to the ignorance of his audience about money and banks. I posted a bit of my outrage at Google+. (If you look at it, you'll have to scroll down to the post with the graph showing the components of the money supply, since I don't know if there's a way to link directly to the posting.)

Finally, in the early afternoon, I showered and went off to run errands. One of them was to the Northfield Library. I returned the Tana French book I'd just finished and went off in search of new things to read. But, oops, I'd forgotten to bring my "to read" list.

That meant I was reduced to looking for new books by familiar authors. Good luck. I found a new book by Craig Johnson. I've written about Another Man's Moccasins and Death Without Company. I liked them, but I'd given both of them Heart of Gold awards for improbabilities.

Well, Junkyard Dogs gets a Heart of Gold and a Green Lantern (for super heroism).

This is another "Walt Longmire Mystery." One bit in the book has the sheriff getting a physical exam during which the doc catalogs his injuries and scars (including a broken bone in one foot and a partially detached retina). After that the super hero sheriff gets banged around some more, but still comes out able to see, walk, talk, and chew gum at the same time. More than any mere mortal. Give us a break, Johnson.

The book also gets awards for improbabilities. I only noticed a couple of them while reading the book, but some biggies popped into my head as I went to sleep.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I was was so entranced with the story and the pursuit of the villains, I finished the book about 11:15pm. Less than 12 hours after checking it out. And I sort of cooked dinner in there and talked to Nancy while eating it.

Craig Johnson relies of his super hero and on improbabilities, but he spins a mean yarn. The characters are pretty one-dimensional, but he spins a mean yarn. Winter on the high plains of northern Wyoming is brutal, but Johnson spins a mean (and complex) yarn. He kept me going for a long time. Oh, did I mention that there's some good humor in the book, too? Like the opening scene where grandpa ties himself to the bumper of the car in the yard while he cleans the chimney, but his granddaughter-in-law doesn't know it and drives off. (Grandpa survives that one, and it's funny because he does.)

Do you need more recommendation from me?

Have you read Junkyard Dogs? Or another of Craig Johnson's mysteries? Write and tell this little bit of the world how you reacted.
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