Kindness Goes Unpunished

Protagonist: Sheriff Walt Longmire
Setting: present-day Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Series: #3

First Line: I didn't wear my gun.

Walt is on a trip to Philadelphia to visit his lawyer daughter, Cady, but the evening he arrives, Cady is critically injured and rushed to the hospital. She's in a coma, and Walt sets aside helping his friend, Henry Standing Bear, with an art exhibit to try to find who did this to her. Just when he's about to close in on Cady's fiance as the culprit, the young man is killed, and now Walt really wants to get to the bottom of this mess.

Although it was rather strange to see Walt out of his beloved Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming, it was good to see how he behaved in strange territory. Walt kept his cowboy hat on his show more head, but (mostly) played nice with the Philadelphians. He's no fool. Walt knew he had to get along with the local police so the crime could be solved. What was, and continues to be, so very good about this series isn't just the plot, but all the complex interactions of the characters. We get to see Walt as a daddy whose little girl might die, and we get to see how the cavalry gallops in to help him. It's almost impossible for me to believe that these characters aren't real--that's how good Johnson is. I've read many mysteries of the lone-wolf-as-savior variety and liked them. However, I think that a book of this type showing a man and his friends and family and how they all love, respect and support each other would be more difficult to write, and ultimately more satisfying to read. Perhaps it's the latent John Donne in me. No man is an island.... Walt Longmire is no island, and we readers are much the richer for it. show less

In KINDNESS GOES UNPUNISHED, the third book from Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series, Walt and Henry Standing Bear are traveling to Philadelphia. Henry is going to display his photo collection in an art show and Walt goes along to visit his daughter, Cady. Before Walt even sees Cady in Philadephia, she is viciously attacked and left for dead. While Walt and his friends rotate a vigil watching over Cady in the hospital, the investigation into who harmed Cady and why ensues. Despite being a "stranger in a strange land" Walt is determined to find justice for Cady.

Craig Johnson is one of those authors who writes a book that leaves me thinking, "wow! This is amazing. But, now there's nowhere for him to go from here. You can't get better show more than perfection." KINDNESS GOES UNPUNISHED topped perfection. I'm reading the series in order, so I've now read books one through three. I love each and every one of them, but KINDNESS GOES UNPUNISHED is definitely my favorite. Walt has always been an extraordinarily REAL character. It would not surprise me in the least to run into this man on the street. But in his third adventure Walt's relationship with his daughter added another amazing dimension to his already life-like existence. A large part of Walt's existence is defined by his relationships with his friends and family. Because of the strength of those relationships, Walt is also left vulnerable when it comes to them - they are his Achilles heel, and no where has that been more evident than in KINDNESS GOES UNPUNISHED when someone harms Walt's only child.

But, rest assured. Even though a major trauma has occurred, Walt did not lose his sense of humor.

KINDNESS GOES UNPUNISHED introduces us to Vic's family who all live in Philadelphia. While Vic doesn't initially travel with Walt and Henry to the City of Brotherly Love, she does ride in when Sheriff Walt is in need of his deputy. And her presence in the midst of her family adds another dimension to her character as well. The dysfunction of the Moretti family creates a sharp contrast to the relationships of the Absaroka County family.

As with the two books before this, Johnson takes his characters through a plot of amazing proportions that changes each of them in significant ways. I can't imagine a reader traveling alongside the characters and not changing him/herself as well. I know I was a different person as a result.

KINDNESS GOES UNPUNISHED is nothing short of spectacular. show less

The third entry in the Walt Longmire series, Kindness Goes Unpunished by Craig Johnson, finds Walt accompanying his best friend Henry Standing Bear to Philadelphia. Henry is there to give a speech and set up an exhibition of Native American photographs. Walt is looking forward to visiting his daughter Cady and meeting her new boyfriend. Barely upon arrival Walt receives word that Cady has been attacked. She now lies in the hospital with a traumatic head injury. Walt, feeling helpless over her condition, is determined to find who is responsible, and his first visit is to the boyfriend.

I was a little concerned that the urban setting would be detrimental to this series, but I needn’t have worried. You can take Walt Longmire out of the show more west, but you cannot take the west out of Longmire. Wearing his cowboy hat and boots, relying on his trademark dry humor as much as his brawn, Walt strides the city streets and is well able to work alongside the Philadelphia police which includes various members of the Moretti family. With Henry and eventually Vic at his side, they unravel the various clues and find justice for Cady.

I am a big fan of this series, and the main character Walt Longmire is a huge reason why. This character jumps from the pages and is so real that it’s hard to realize that he comes from the imagination of a very talented author. In this third volume we are given a look at Walt’s softer side as we read of his anguish over his daughters condition. His romantic life grows by leaps and bounds and definitely will be something that the series needs to explore in future entries. Kindness Goes Unpunished is intelligent, witty, and totally captivating. Another winner is this great series. show less

Although I have yet to see the A&E tv series Longmire, I’m enjoying my trot (well, okay; gallop) through the source material. Walt Longmire, county sheriff, has over twenty-five years in the field and is supervisor of a very small team of deputies. As with many books in the detective fiction, the mystery is deeply imbued with a sense of place, notably the sparsely populated and rugged landscapes of rural Wyoming. As in many mysteries, Longmire has a faithful comrade-in-arms, but instead of the generally dopey Watson stereotype, his companion is a far wiser long-time friend, Henry Running Bear. Henry is a man of seemingly infinite talents and an artistic soul and when in Wyoming, is often Walt’s ambassador to Native reservations.

In show more this book, Henry is escorting a collection of unusual historical photographs out to an exhibition in Philadelphia. Walt decides the timing is right to meet his daughter Cady’s boyfriend, so the two decide to make a trip of it. It is a bold authorial choice to take your detective hero out of the home environment so early in a series, particularly when your mystery is so intimately tied to the intricacies of the setting. In this case, Johnson wisely continues to integrate setting, letting Walt play tourist to involve a number of prominent locations in the story.

Johnson is gifted at the ‘show, don’t tell’ style of storytelling, and occasionally I find myself pausing, realizing he just dropped an implication. This little gem aptly displays his skill with just a few words:

“‘No, I was just thinking. I do that, sometimes, before I talk.’
Lena smiled, this time with her entire mouth. ‘Not me, robs the evening of all its spontaneity. A little wine, a little truth, and pretty soon you’ve got a real conversation on your hands.’ She took a last sip.
I started to pour us both some more. It seemed like the conversation was getting interesting, and I wasn’t quite ready to leave it.“

This installment stands out in the interplay between Henry and Walt. Although Henry is the primary motivator in making the trip, he ends up nicely balancing support of Walt and Cady with his own work. It’s always interesting to me to see how a writer deals with ethnicity, and I feel Johnson generally avoids turning Henry into a Native trope. Parat of what elevates the characters is the decades-long history between the two, which Johnson illustrates in his usual understated way:

“After Michael left, we sat in chairs on either side of the bed and watched Cady. ‘It was the right thing to do.’
I had been listening to him think it for so long, I wasn’t sure if I needed to reply. ‘Yep.’“

Humor played a more prominent role in this story, although it was often only evident to the reader. I enjoyed Walt’s dry sense of humor, as well as his confidence in wearing his comfortable Western clothes in a major city.

“I opened my coffee and looked at the decisively dark brew. ‘This looks strong.’
‘Espresso, tall, double-shot. I thought you could use it.’ She looked at me. ‘How’s she doing?’
I took a sip and swallowed most of the enamel from my teeth.“

Even I, sports-adverse as I am, laughed at this sports-related one, made as Walt and Henry were taking in a baseball game:

“He looked at me and shook his head. ‘Where do you want to hide the body?’
“I just want to talk to him.’
The Bear pursed his lips. ‘How about behind third; the Phillies have not shown any signs of life there in years.’“

I enjoyed the mystery, although at one or two points, it seemed excessively convoluted, but I felt it unraveled remarkably similar to real life. The emotional complexity as Walt faced certain issues was very interesting, balanced between melodramatic and stoicism. I was perhaps just slightly too obsessive to me, but I’m not a parent, so what do I know? Johnson gives a nice sense of the difference between Walt’s exterior and his interior, no easy feat in a book that focuses on action. Really, it fit me perfectly, suspenseful without being horrific, emotionally sophisticated with complex characters and enough humor to make it palatable. The ending scene would have made me laugh out loud if Johnson didn’t have such a deft hand for pathos. Un-putdownable, I’m already on to the next in the series.

Cross posted at my blog: https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2014/09/28/kindness-goes-unpunished-by-craig-joh... show less

"My attempts at filling the available beds at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania had not gone unnoticed, and Rissman had asked if I wanted all my people in one wing. I noted that it'd be convenient."

Sheriff Walt Longmire comes to the City of Brotherly Love and, when daughter Cady winds up in the hospital, shows the local beat cops how real justice is dispensed. While in town he also has the opportunity to catch up with the members of the Moretti family (Vic the father, Vic the son and Vic the Holy Terror).

It's hard to say, because I did enjoy The Cold Dish so very much, but Kindness Goes Unpunished might almost rival it for my favorite in the Longmire series. It was fantastic. I laughed out loud several times - so witty. I show more really enjoyed where we went with the characters this time and I'm curious to see how this book's developments will affect the next in the series. I also liked being in Philadelphia, a nice change of scene and, I thought, a unique way to 'tour' the city. show less

The third Walt Longmire mystery was a bit of a departure from its predecessors and I found the results rather mixed.

Walt is accompanying Henry Standing Bear to Philadelphia where Henry will exhibit the Mennonite Pictures of the Cheyenne that he has unearthed. Walt is visiting his lawyer daughter, Katie and her new fiancé and has reluctantly agreed to visit with Vics Morretti's family, a dominant presence in the PPD, who have insisted on meeting him.

From these fish-out-of-water beginnings, we're launched into a mystery that involves multiple murders, puts Katie in the hospital and makes Walt first chief suspect and later reluctantly accepted consultant to two PPD Homicide Detectives.

Seeing Walt applying his "track the prey and stalk show more them stealthily" approach to detection in the context of a big city where he does not know everybody was good fun, as was watching Henry compensate for some of his friend's abrasiveness while still backing him up. It was interesting to see more of Katie's life and better to understand Walt's relationship with her. The introduction of the Morretti family did a lot to explain Vic's outspoken behaviour and her confidence.

What I didn't enjoy so much was seeing Walt so relatively isolated. The first two books have a more ensemble feel to them. I missed the other characters and found myself less sympathetic to Walt in his, mostly self-imposed, isolation. The "White Indian" conceit was clever. It let Walt leverage his background and it linked neatly to Philadelphia's historic statues but as it went on it began to feel like a stretch. By the time I got to an on-horseback confrontation between Walt and the main suspect, I was beginning to lose patience.

Then the was the sex scene. That caught me by surprise both because I didn't expect there to be one and because I didn't expect it to be between the two people involved. I didn't find it entirely convincing. Maybe I didn't want to be convinced because too many of my expectations and assumptions were being shaken up at the one time and making me uncomfortable, or maybe I'm just getting old but something about this didn't fit.

The story ended with Walt still in Philadelphia. I have the next book in my TBR pile. I'm hoping Walt heads home to Wyoming soon and that the next instalment adds some credibility to what happened in Philadelphia and puts Walt back into an environment where I understand him. show less

Walt heads East with Henry Standing Bear on a road trip to Philly to visit his daughter Cady while Henry sets up a photography exhibit. Cady is attacked and Walt becomes involved in an ongoing police investigation, aided by several of the Moretti clan. Johnson has created such a rich, complex world and set of characters that fill my head even when I'm not reading one of their stories. As tough as it is, I am trying to ration the ensuing books, and hope to last at least a week or two before picking up number 4. And in some sort of Staben like six degrees, I've recommended the series to four people, two of which have already started reading them as well.