The Longmire Mysteries

On a recent vacation to visit family in a remote region of Oregon (and I do mean remote: mail is delivered three days a week, via boat), I found myself at said family's mercy when it came to entertainment.  The good news was that there was plenty of time to kick back and read throughout the day as the family made general idiots of themselves water-skiing across the lake for hours on end.  The bad news was that I found myself at their mercy at the end of the day when the television came on.

Determined to be a good sport, this non-television-watching gal tucked up on the couch determined to feign interest in whatever insipid popular, brainless show they were addicted to.  See what a good sport I am?  So you can imagine my surprise when they tuned into a series (which of course I had never heard of) that was, well, actually good. You may have heard of it. A little modern-day, western mystery series over on A&E going by the name of Longmire.  And best of all?  My beady little eyes honed in on the opening credits which read:  "Based on the books by Craig Johnson".  Well, well, well. What have we here?

Now the episodes I watched there were pretty darned good.  But you can be damned sure I got up the next morning and downloaded the first of Craig Johnson's books, The Cold Dish.  And read it in one afternoon. It was that good. Yes, far, far better than the television version.

If you're not familiar with the premise, let me fill you in. Walt Longmire is the sheriff in a sparsely populated county in Wyoming. Okay, all counties in Wyoming are sparsely populated, but this one particularly so.  He's been doing this a while, so he's a little jaded. And Wyoming towns are really small town. If you've ever been there, you know what I'm talking about. I myself had the particular pleasure (not sure if that's sarcasm or not) of flying freight throughout Wyoming in my younger years so I understood immediately the tone of the books and perhaps experienced some displaced nostalgia. But I digress.

Walt has a deputy, Vic, from Philadelphia.  She's good at what she does and brings a much-needed dose of the big city to the place, though she has a mouth on her like a sailor on shore-leave. Walt's best-friend, Henry Standing Bear, is a Cheyenne who runs the only bar in town. Everyone has a hysterically dry sense of humor although it's clear they aren't aware of that.

"Slugs basically convert shotguns into oversize rifles with enough power to crack automobile engine blocks."
"Why would somebody want to shoot somebody with something like that?"
"Emphasis."

So while I laughed myself silly throughout, the mysteries themselves are actually quite serious. As I mentioned, Wyoming isn't exactly populous so when a murder occurs it is a momentous occasion. Johnson creates crimes riddled with both legal and moral quagmires that make this much more than a typical whodunit mystery.

Still, there is the laughter.

"You want to take a ride?"
"I'm saddled and, if you're waitin' for me, yer backin' up."
It was like working with Louis L'Amour.

All in all, I'm thoroughly grateful there are ten books in the series. And while I do recommend picking up the books, I cannot in all good conscious, recommend Wyoming. Especially Rock Springs. Ugh. (There, see?  I just lost another reader.)

Title:  The Cold Dish

Author:  Craig Johnson

Publisher:  Penguin (Reprint Edition)

Date:  2012

Pages:  400

Source:  Bought it.  Lock, stock and proverbial barrel.

Rating:  Five Stars

From the Recovery Room

Well hello there. How is everyone?  We've missed you during our short hiatus.  Where did we go, you ask? We were under the knife.  That's right, the old major surgery excuse.  Suffice it to say that we are well on the road to our long recovery (six to eight months worth, yikes!).  

The last thing we remember seeing.

And while A Reader's Respite thought we had our initial recovery well-stocked with every book you can imagine, no one told us that all those pain medications make reading a book seem like climbing Mt. Everest.  

Reading became a tiring chore.  We lacked concentration.  We lacked interest.  Books were abandoned a mere ten pages in.  Worthy reads were callously discarded.  Blogging? Forget about it. 

It. Was. Horrible. 

We are pleased to report, however, that our ability to commit ourselves to a book is slowly (ever so slowly) returning.  Whew.  We've even read a few excellent novels which we'll tell you all about later this week. The one book, though, that stood out from the rest and took us by surprise was Hugh Howey's series of novellas, Wool.

Have you read them?  Wow.  We were riveted from the first page.  Author Hugh Howey originally published these novellas one at a time, starting in 2011, via Amazon's self publishing tool. Nowadays, they are available in an omnibus edition comprising Books 1-5 of this amazing dystopian story both in Kindle format and dead-tree version thanks to Simon & Schuster who knew a good novel when they saw one and promptly purchased the print rights to this gem.

Wool presents our world at some future point in time (exactly when remains unclear) when the Earth has become uninhabitable, at least as we experience living.  A toxic atmosphere has forced the remaining humans to live underground in a vast, ever-so-deep silo.  Don't feel too sorry for our characters, though.  They don't know how bad they have it because living in the silo is the only life anyone knows or remembers.  History, you see, didn't make it into the silos.

Howey constructs a fascinating world.  In true dystopian fashion we find a society that lives and governs itself under both the familiar and unfamiliar.  We found it riveting.  Of course, a novel needs a plot, right?  There is plenty of that, too.  Through a series of events we won't divulge here (no way are we spoiling this one for those who haven't had the pleasure yet), the inhabitants of our Silo 18 inadvertently discover they aren't alone.  There are other silos.  

While a goodly amount of action and adventure exist, Howey never once compromises character development.  Protagonists and antagonists abound and they are easy to care for (just don't get too attached to any of them).  The answers you long for - how did they get there?  what led to living in the silos?  why are the other silos kept secret? WHY? WHY? OH WHY? - are doled out in little tidbits that make the reader nearly beg for more.

We like this cover the best

Can you tell we loved this book?  Thank goodness there is more of Howey's world of silos, conveniently available in another omnibus called Shift, containing Books 6-8.  And we're not the only ones who loved this fictional world - 20th Century Fox snapped up the film rights and Ridley Scott has been rumored to direct.

Howey is a rare phenomenon - the self published author who is truly talented and deserving of a wide audience.  There is nothing amateur about this work.  A Reader's Respite is ashamed to think that this gem has been languishing on our Kindle for well over a year, unread because we have become so used to disappointment from the vast majority of self published novels.  Don't make our mistake:  read it.

Title: Wool (Omnibus Edition)

Author:  Hugh Howey

Publisher: Kindle Direct Publishing (ebook), Simon & Schuster (print)

Date:  2012

Pages: 550

Source:  Purchased

Rating:  5 Stars