About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

AS THE CROW FLIES
by Craig Johnson
Viking, May 2012
325 pages
$25.95
ISBN: 0670023515


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Craig Johnson's AS THE CROW FLIES is the eighth in the series featuring Walt Longmire, a Wyoming sheriff who is temporarily transplanted to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana for this book. As the novel opens, Longmire and his friend, Henry Standing Bear (whom Longmire refers to as "the Cheyenne Nation"), are out scouting for a location for Longmire's daughter's wedding. As they watch helplessly, a woman falls to her death from a cliff. Longmire's dog (named Dog), finds the baby she was holding largely unharmed nearby. So much for a wedding location!

Longmire and the Cheyenne Nation spend the majority of the book working to solve what turns out to have been the murder of a young woman while balancing their investigation against the needs of Longmire's soon-to-be-married daughter. Johnson brings the main characters vividly to life, including Longmire, Henry Standing Bear, and Lolo Long, an Iraqi veteran who is the new female Chief of Police on the reservation and for whom Longmire serves as an unintentional tutor. Although the characters' names in the book tend almost to imply caricatures, the characters themselves come across as real living and breathing humans. Perhaps even more than the people, the landscape and location comprise a major player in the book; Johnson's writing transports the reader to the dry Montana setting. You'll want a glass of water at hand as you read about the dusty reservation.

There is a playfulness and generosity to this book that comes from the relationships between the characters, the choices of names, and the understanding of circumstances that make strict adherence to the law inadvisable. A subtle sense of humor drives the book, and is apparent everywhere in comments like, "Diamond Butte Lookout is situated precisely in the middle of nowhere." This provides an appealing gentleness to the rough and tumble western setting and lawman.

Johnson takes us from one fully realized scene to another, stringing a narrative that is rather like Christmas lights. We find ourselves fully immersed in a setting, caring deeply about the events and people. As the situation is resolved, Johnson transitions us, usually along a highway in an old rundown truck named Rezdawg, to the next intensely engaging situation. This unusual narrative style worked well to bring the book alive.

Although this is the first Longmire book I've read, I didn't have trouble jumping into the series mid-stride. However, I am definitely looking forward to heading back to the start of the series.

§ Sharon Mensing is the Head of School of Emerald Mountain School, an independent school in the mountains of Colorado, where she lives, reads, and enjoys the outdoors.

Reviewed by Sharon Mensing, June 2012

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]