The Cold Dish

Tough and funny, hopeless and loveable, Walt Longmire needs to get his act together in more ways than one. But he will...you just know it...at least when circumstances are dire and needs must. In this first novel of the series, Walt is contemplating retirement from the office of Sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming. His life is a mess. Four years a widower, he lives in the shell of the uncompleted cabin he and his wife had begun to build before her death. He carries some Vietnam baggage. He avoids his daughter's phone calls, takes a lot of guff from his dispatcher/office manager Ruby, and from his heir apparent, a former member of the South Philadelphia PD, Deputy Victoria Moretti. Vic's specialties are ballistics and the "F" word; she show more resents having moved to East Bejaysus Wyoming when her husband decided to take a job there. Now four young white men who were let off easy after being convicted of sexually assaulting a young girl from the reservation appear to be targets of a vengeful shooter, and the choice of weapon limits the potential suspect field to a select few...including Walt himself, and his best friend, Henry Standing Bear. Really fine writing, lots of descriptive detail (I think I got a little frostbite myself at one point), humor in all the right places, and an ending I didn't see coming until just the right moment. Highly recommended, with the caveat that there are graphic and disturbing moments. show less

Some books just click into a slot in my imagination and light it up. "The Cold Dish" is one of them.

From the first chapter of "Cold Dish" I knew that all I wanted to do was settle down and listen to anything Sheriff Longmire had to tell me about anything at all.
Now some of that may be because the audiobook is narrated George Guidall in a voice that creates a sense of craggy solidity, tinged with slightly weary self-deprecation and a habit of humour that has been worn threadbare by continued use in the face of the otherwise unbearable.

Some of it is because Longmire is a man whose bright future is behind him. He's mourning his wife's death. His wife died three years earlier and, as seems to be the American way, he is being told that he show more needs to move on. I felt deep empathy with not just his inability to do this but his inability to conceive of why he should want to do this. If my wife died, I know that for me, three years of mourning would pass in a heartbeat and would not be close to being enough. I recognised the truth of what he said about surviving his wife:
"When they are gone, we are left with who we are after we were with them, and sometimes we don't recognize that person."
Walt has been around forever and is beginning to wonder why he's still here. He has a dry sense of humour and low expectations of other people and of life in general. What keeps him tethered to the world are a few long term friendships and an inability to let acts of evil slip by.

I was pleased to see that Walt is not the only strong character. Henry Standing Bear, Walt's oldest friend, ex-special forces, current owner of the Red Pony Bar and possible murder suspect is beautifully drawn. Then there's Deputy Vic Moretti, Walt's heir-apparent in his long-planned retirement. She's a hard-charging cop from Philidephilia, marooned in Wyoming after moving for her husband's job. She's tough and direct and takes no shit from anyone. She's also isolated, lonely and surviving mostly on the sheer determination not to give in.

The relationship between these characters is human and believable and far away from crime fiction cliché

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF THIS REVIEW ON MY WORDPRESS SITE: https://mikefinnsfiction.wordpress.com/2019/04/26/the-cold-dish-walt-longmire-1-... show less

Walt Longmire is the sheriff of Absaroka County in Wyoming, a place where everyone knows your name and probably your business. Walt's been a widower for three...no four years now. His home is worse than a bachelor pad, his deputy Vic is forever giving him a hard time about being overweight, and there's mouse droppings on his cooking utensils.

Despite the fact that Walt's life seems to be in a shambles, the people of Absaroka County like Walt, especially his good friend and Cheyenne Indian Henry Standing Bear. As a matter of fact, there's a small conspiracy going on between Henry, Cady (Walt's adult daughter), and Ruby (Walt's strong-willed secretary) to coax Walt back into the swing of life.

But a murder throws a wrench in that plan. Cody show more Pritchard, Jacob and George Esper and Brian Keller were convicted a few years earlier of raping and assaulting a young Cheyenne Indian girl, Melissa, who suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. The were convicted by served measly sentences. Many people in the community and on the Cheyenne Reservation were disgusted with the outcome of the trial, and the outcome haunts Walt. So, when Cody Pritchard winds up shot to death and shortly thereafter Jacob succumbs to the same fate, Walt has to figure out who of the multitude of suspects is behind the murders and protect both George and Brian from ending up like Cody and Jacob. The hardest part for Walt is the fact that Henry, Melissa's "uncle", is a prime suspect.

Had there been no plot to this story whatsoever, I probably would have been mesmerized all the same. The characters are some of the richest I've seen in a long time. By the time I reached the end of the novel, I wanted to go live in Absaroka County with them! Walt is just plain fun. There's no question why his constituents like him. He's kind and fair and aims to do the "right" thing. He's not perfect, and his altercation with Turk highlights that. Turk assaulted Jules, an old drunk man, while putting Jules in jail for peeing on him. Walt simply lost his control and assaulted Turk. While his actions are ironic, I had trouble feeling any sympathy for Turk. But Ruby was furious with Walt and even threatened to quit because she was disgusted with his behavior. And Walt was embarrassed for it. Me, I was cheering for him!

I love Walt, but I often have a special affinity for the supporting character in a duo-type story. I'm very fond of Henry in this book. He is an incredibly rich character. His sarcastic humor is phenomenal. I was almost in tears laughing at various parts in this novel, and they usually involved something Henry was saying. And Henry often ends up being the sarcastic voice of reason when Walt starts getting carried away.

All the characters in this novel are fascinating: Vic, Lucien, Omar, Jules, Ruby, George, Vonnie, Dena, Melissa and Lonnie Little Bird...yes, it is so. Johnson has a knack for breathing realism into his characters and bringing them to life for the reader. Their interactions with each other add a whole additional level of complexity to the novel. In and of themselves they would each be great characters but the relationships between them make them extraordinary characters.

But characterization isn't his only skill. Absaroka County is a tiny little place in Wyoming where very little out of the ordinary happens. This fact is reinforced when Vic is giving her crime updates to Walt at various times throughout the novel.

The element I enjoyed the most was the intertwining of the Cheyenne Indian culture. I've always been fascinated by mythologies. So, I thought Chapter 12 was beyond brilliant. It was moving and it carried a completely different tone than the rest of the novel. There was obvious and utter respect emanating from this chapter.

I was entranced for the entire chapter, more accurately the remainder of the book. This book made me laugh, made me cry, and made me think. I loved it. I just simply can't say enough wonderful things to do this book justice. If you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend you do so. show less

Walt Longmire is marking time until he can retire as sheriff of Absaroka County,Wyoming. His co-workers and friends have tolerated the annoying bachelor habits he's developed since the death of his wife, but they're beginning to hint (not so subtly) that it's time for him to move on. He doesn't protest too much when his best friend, Henry Standing Bear, fixes him up with a beautiful, wealthy single neighbor. However, their budding romance must wait while Sheriff Longmire leads an investigation into the murder of a local youth. The young man was one of four involved in the rape of a Cheyenne teenager with fetal alcohol syndrome. There are some in the community, both on and off the reservation, who believe the boys were punished too show more lightly for their crime. Has someone taken up where the legal system is believed to have failed?

Although this is a character-driven story, there is plenty of action for readers who prefer plot-driven novels. There's just enough humor to keep the atmosphere from becoming unbearably depressing. Johnson gets the relationship between Longmire and Standing Bear just right. Their conversations are made up of the kind of back and forth that is characteristic of long years of familiarity and shared experiences, with an unstated undercurrent of deep affection and trust. I feel like the characters are real people in a real place, and if I went to Wyoming I'd find them there. This is one of those rare books I hated to finish because I didn't want my time with the characters to end. Fortunately, I have several more books in the series waiting for me! show less

The Cold Dish is an excellent start to a series of crime novels revolving around Walt Longmire, sheriff of Absaroka Country in Wyoming. Although the country seat of Durant doesn’t seem to exist, the author pretty much pinpoints the areas as just east of the Big Horns, near the Powder River Basin and south of the Cheyenne Indian Reservation at Lame Deer. Ranch country.

This character driven novel has all the ingredients that I look for in a crime story. An intriguing mystery, interesting characters that I want to know more about, with lots of space for the series to grow. Walt’s relationships with the women in his life is fresh and realistic. Walt looks to these women for honesty and realness, from his foul mouthed deputy to the woman show more who runs the local dinner, these relationships allow you to get inside and see both the man and the sheriff. The book is worth reading simply for the interaction between Walt and his best friend, Indian bartender Henry. I found myself chuckling out loud a few times.

What takes the book to a higher level than many crime stories is the calibre of the writing. His descriptive prose allows you to breath the crisp fall Wyoming air. His dialogues feel realistic and true, allowing you to see the laid back Western neighbourliness while at the same time giving you a sense of the political and cultural differences that lie between the white community and the native Americans.

After one book, I can say I am a fan of Craig Johnson’s. I look forward to reading more of his work. show less

Was going to watch the series, but downloading the book was quicker and, I suspect, better. I haven't enjoyed reading such a deadpan narrator since Archie Goodwin - Walt Longmire is a treasure. The mystery itself - the deaths of two men involved in the sexual assault of a young Indian girl - was also well paced, in and amongst the usual introductions and scene-setting of a first novel. I didn't see the end coming, but I suspect I was enjoying myself too much to think about whodunit (I was satisfied on a character development level by the identity of the killer, though). Second book already downloaded and ready to go!

A solid mystery with engaging characters. I guessed the twist fairly early on, and yet was surprised when it actually happened — it was extremely well-structured.

I was pleasantly surprised by the number of women in the story. It had almost complete gender parity, and the women are wonderfully varied in age and temperament. Considering I'd been expecting the typical sausagefest, this was wonderful and something I'd like to see more of.

Rape is a huge part of the story in this book — nothing that we "see on screen", fortunately, and I believe it's handled with a decent amount of respect and sensitivity. More than you see in a lot of fiction, but that's saying very little. There's also no escaping the fact that Melissa, the rape show more survivor, is barely a character, and the story is more about the effects on the perpetrators and the investigator. Melissa is treated with respect and sympathy by the narrative, but there is something inescapably uncomfortable about only seeing the impact this violent crime against an Indian woman has on white men.

Still, while that is somewhat problematic, it's far from an unforgivable sin, and I'm interested enough in the characters that I think I'll be checking out the rest of the series. show less