Any Other Name: A Longmire Mystery (2014)

The best yet. A book with action, humor, and thoughtful nuanced writing. Thank you, Craig Johnson! ( )

Sometimes I think Walt Longmire takes his job to serious. As Lucian Connally, his old boss, says about Walt in this book; "Because he's like a gun; once you point him and pull the trigger, it's too late to change your mind." That sums up Walt pretty well. He just can't let go of things. Even when he gets hurt, and let me tell you, he usually ends up with at least one visit to the hospital in every book, at least it feels like that.

Lucian asks him for a favor in this book, a simple request to visit a widow to a recently deceased police. She doesn’t believe that her husband killed himself and Walt agrees to look into the suicide even though all evidence points to suicide and not murder, and even though his daughter Cady is in Philadelphia ready to give birth and want her daddy there.  Luckily he has his friend Henry Standing Bear and his trusty deputy Vic Moretti by his side.

I probably had too high expectations after the last book. The ending in the last book had me in bits since I was worried that one of my favorite characters wouldn’t pull through and also since the ending revealed something unexpected and tragic. I found the case in this book a bit lacking. The book was never dull to read, but the case, the suicide that led to missing women wasn’t just my cup of tea. It just never really got intense, not even the ending. It was a good book, but since I have waited to read it for months, longing for it, to have Vic and Walt to have the big talk about what happened in the last book and they just skimmed the surface. So now I have to wait for the next book to see if they will have a heart to heart. I liked it better when I had all the published books to go through instead of this hellish waiting... ( )

Walt, Walt, Walt. You almost get beaten up more than Harry Dresden, but not quite. Harry gets his ass kicked on the regular more than anyone.

This time Walt should be on his way to Philly to welcome his grandbaby into the world. What is he doing instead? Solving a case. With Lucian. And a little assist from Vic and Henry. My favorite everyman's hero does it again, Wyoming-style, and solves the case, which turns out to be two cases. Extra bonus for Henry being the best sidekick ever and I enjoyed the cop / investigator guy who helps them figure it out by the end. ( )

10 for 10. Johnson seems incapable of writing a bad novel. ( )

Walt Longmire is asked by his old friend, Lucian Connelly, to investigate the suicide of an old friend. Naturally, Walt agrees to take the case.

The suicide, once Walt gives it a good poke, is far more complicated than it seems. He soon finds out that not only was the old friend a cop, but the wife is one of Lucian's long ago girl friends. There is also the small matter of three missing women in the town.

Walt gets tangled in the complicated case, even though daughter his Cady will be producing Walt’s first grandchild momentarily, and fully expects her father to be present.

There are lots of good interactions and humor between Walt and his friend Henry Standing Bear. Other western details I especially enjoyed include finding oneself in a blizzard afoot in a herd of bison, and the detailing of the Historic Lodge in the Black Hills that once acted as the Summer White house. If you are a train aficionado, the coal trains play a large part as well.

Even with the good moments, this installment seemed a little recycled to me. Walt himself tells a cabby there are statistically only twenty murders a year in Wyoming. (How many have occurred in the last year in these books? No wonder he's now working on one in South Dakota.) The crime is one we have seen before, although in another form. And the question of Walt making it out alive, much less in time to be at the grandchild’s birth didn’t really engage me. I found this question much too similar to whether Walt would make it to Cady’s wedding in a previous volume.

Still fun, lots of great original western details and humor even if the suspense was lacking. ( )