Death Without Company: A Longmire Mystery

Every once in a while you pick up a book by a new author, not knowing what to expect, and are completely blown away. This happened last year, when I read Craig Johnson's The Cold Dish. Wow! So I was really excited when I saw that his second book, Death Without Company, was out. And frankly, book number two is every bit as good as the first one. Sheriff Longmire of Wyoming is back with his long-time friend, the intriguing Henry Standing Bear, crusty former Sheriff Lucian Connally, and Deputy Vic Moretti, a transplant from the big city whose bold attitude and colorful language spice up the book. I will warn you, though, this book takes place just a few weeks after the first one and the events of that book are discussed and the ending revealed. If you think you might like these books, read The Cold Dish first. So what makes these books so good? Just the basics - good writing, setting, plot, characters that are really interesting, and a little humor thrown in. This book flows seamlessly and sucks you into the story of a modern murder and how it might be related to past events - and there are enough suspects populating this book that you have lots of people to audition for the role of bad guy. This book is not going to be appropriate for cozy-only readers. It's not a hack and slash, but it does have some grit to it. This book reminds me of the early Robert B. Parker Spenser books, and if you enjoyed those, you will find this right up your alley. If you are looking to try something a little outside of your comfort zone, the quality of the writing and the approachable style make this a perfect choice. Did I guess it? Only parts. Will I read another? Just as soon as it is available!

Yes, this is another excellent story by Craig Johnson. I recommend it fully. It is a mystery set in the Big Horn mountain area of Wyoming and although the town and county don't exist, you can decipher where it is based upon the locales. The story starts out slow to build the characters and the plot, but then takes off and the book is hard to put down. Because the time was spent to build the characters, you are with them throughout the ending, pulling for them. I can't wait for another book by this author. The story lines, the characters, the area, they all come together to make for a great story. Keep up the good work!

Craig Johnson grows on one. I was intrigued into reading his first novel, THE COLD DISH, by a review on DorothyL. I wasn't sure what to think of it, for in many ways it turned the rules of mystery writing, if not on their side, at least at a severe angle. Who ever heard of a rural sheriff with a degree in English Literature and who quotes Shakespeare with great regularity? There have been Native American sidekicks before, but rarely one who speaks English with high grammar and never uses a contraction. Said sidekick has a degree in classical literature, but runs a rural bar and is conversant in the languages of four different tribes. And then there is the female deputy-female, mind you, whose favorite word is a four-letter word (or one of its variants) that begins with the letter "f." And the former Sheriff, who still struggles with the fact that the style of law enforcement of the old west is no longer accepted in modern jurisprudence. However, I was intrigued enough to read Johnson's second book, DEATH WITHOUT COMPANY. I'm glad I did. The same characters are back, as they look into whether the death of an elderly woman in a rest home was a death by natural causes or a murder. In so doing, they look back at the history of Basque sheepherders who settled in Wyoming, after the Second World War, and how their culture and that of the Anglo culture interacted while never mixing. Sheriff Walt Longmire, a Vietnam War veteran who got his degree in English Literature before being drafted, is the Sheriff of the least-populated county in Wyoming, one that covers about the same number of acres as the State of Vermont. He is sensitive, grieving from the deaths of both his wife, five years earlier, and a woman with whom he was falling in love, in the first novel. His sidekicks are highly educated Cherokee Henry Standing Bear and Deputy Sheriff Victoria "Vic" Moretti, newly separated from her husband and a refugee from the Philadelphia, PA Police Department. Oh yes, she also has a Master's Degree in Law Enforcement. This novel also introduces a new character, Santiago "Sancho" Saizarbitoria, a young, just-out-of-police-academy, educated and married new deputy, who also happens to be of Basque heritage and is a skilled linguist. Never has rural law enforcement had such a collection of officers-and their education causes them to look at ways of enforcing the law and finding the villains that one would not expect law enforcement to take. The book is utterly fascinating, and is, in my opinion, better than the first. This one is worth buying AND reading.

Death Without Company, Craig Johnson's sequel to his highly acclaimed debut novel, The Cold Dish, is a masterpiece combining great literature and a murder mystery. Retaining the regular characters that made The Cold Dish so special -- Sheriff Walt Longmire, his best friend Henry Standing Bear, his foul-mouthed deputy Victoria (Vic) Moretti, Ruby, and Dorothy -- Johnson creates a new story in Absaroka County involving the life and death of the beautiful Basque woman, Mari Baroja. Former Sheriff Lucian Connally insists she was murdered, but Lucian has been acting strange lately. As Walt investigates, he uncovers another fifty year old mystery involving brutality, lots of deception, and memories both good and bad. As with The Cold Dish, all of Johnson's characters come alive as either friends or foes. And though the plot of Death Without Company is dark and sad, there is so much brilliant humor present that one of often torn between laughter and tears. Johnson's writing is simply awesome, and his deeper themes of friendship, love, greed, our treatment of the elderly, and cultural differences show his remarkable skill and intelligence in weaving all of these elements into a beautiful, complex, seamless garment. Having already received starred reviews from Kirkus and ALA's Booklist, Death Without Company is the book to read for 2006. Readers of The Cold Dish will be delighted to encounter their old friends again (and make a few new ones), and new readers will have the thrill of discovering a masterful book written by one of our best contemporary novelists. Craig Johnson and his books are unique in so many ways that, like most truly great works, they defy classification. Funny and heartbreaking; beautiful and very ugly; Western yet universal; intelligent and philosophical but never pedantic -- Johnson has it all and gives it to his readers with his own great love that seems to eminate right from the written page. Like I said, Death Without Company is a genuine masterpiece, and no one today is writing better fiction than Craig Johnson.