“Billy, you say
you saw this body?”
“Yeah,
I did.”
“What’d
it look like?”
Silence,
for a moment. “Looked like a body.”
I
thought about resting my head on my desk. “anybody we know?”
The first of the popular Longmire series by Craig
Johnson. The characters are wonderful, and the man has a way with observation
but, to this reader, at least…the “mystery” or crime elements are so familiar,
and you’ve got to spend so much time on that genre-element it drops this a
grade. But that drop is only a wee bit.
I think if the novel were about Sheriff Longmire and
Henry Standing Bear going fishing and shooting the breeze I’d read the whole
series, but alas, there are episodic cop tropes to make it through.
Please don’t read this impression as not enjoying the
novel—I did, a good deal. It reminds me of noted Western author A. B. Guthrie’s
Chick Charleston mysteries, which strike me the same. Wonderful characterization,
maybe a little too familiar on the mystery element.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.