I remain a devoted follower of the series, but this fourth book was a step back in quality for me. Before I start on the grumbling bits, let me say that the book reads really well and the various wacky characters of the Absaroka County Sheriff Department remain as interesting as usual. The premise is a good one for a police procedural, a crime with very little clues:
No matter what aspect of law enforcement with which you might be involved, there’s always one job you dread. I’m sure at the more complicated venues it’s the terrorists, it’s serial killers, or it’s gang-related, but for the western sheriff it’s always been the body dump.
But ... this is supposed to be a murder mystery novel, it even goes for a double bet by weaving in two similar crimes decades apart: a young unidentified woman found in a ditch by the roadside and a hooker killed near an American base in Vietnam at the time of the Tet ofensive (1968). The link between them appears to be in their nationality (Vietnamese) and the fact that they both seemed to know Walt Longmire. What bothered me was the lack of mystery translated into a lack of tension; I found no surprise in the denouement for both cases. The culprits were pretty obvious from the very start, despite the various red herrings the author tried to throw at the reader.
Second complaint I have is about the focus of the book almost exclusively on Walt, to the detriment of the other characters, including Cady, Vic Moretti, Henry Standing Bear, Sancho, et all, who have token walk in scenes and contribute almost nothing to the plot. Part of the story is told in flashbacks to the period Walt was investigating drug smuggling during the Vietnam War, so it is understandable his present crew would feature less in the story, but I felt the insertion of these flashbacks was rather clumsily executed. I liked though the references to Walt's degree in English Lit and his piano playing scenes.
Actually, the most interesting character of the book is the newcomer FBI (no, the acronim doesn't refer to the federal agency). Virgil White Bufallo reminds me of Chief Bromden of Ken Kesey fame: a huge homeless Indian native, a man of very few words and with a violent streak - the perfect fall guy for the unresolved crime. His paranoid atitude can be excused to some degree due to post traumatic stress after the war and long years of wrongful imprisonment. Some aspects of his story are left unresolved (the mocassins found with him, his talent for chess, how he managed to remain undiscovered in the less populated state of the Union), but the link between him and Walt through their common Vietnam memories works reasonably well.
Third: one of the main appeals of the series in the beginning was the tongue in cheek approach to the serious themes, the one liners and the friendly banter between characters. The flavour is still present, but I feel it is toned down a lot compared with previous books. I hope the next one will revive Walt's sense of humor after these grim recollections of war. His relationship with Vic looks promising. Here's a small topical joke from the present story:
He pulled a thin, black cellular from his back pocket. “I’ve got this, but it only works at the parking spot outside the veterinary office.” He nodded up the road.
“They’ve got painted rocks to mark the spot, and a sign that says ‘telephone booth.’ ”
“Welcome to Wyoming.”
Fourth and fifth are about foreigners and guns: I would not have pegged Walt as a racist and I wasn't bothered by the obvious fetish for firearms in the series until now, but the way the Vietcong is portrayed here feels borrowed wholesale from cold war propaganda brochures or from a Rambo movie. Twice (both Virgil and Walt) we have scenes where the spunky American soldier is mowing down entire batallions of the enemy singlehanded, heroically holding back the red tide who seem incapable of scoring a single hit on our boy. Add another episode of torture at the hands of Japanese soldiers and a slightly gratuitous scene with Walt rescuing wounded comrades under heavy fire, and you get a gung-ho militaristic flavour that generally doesn't sit very well with me.
Not everything about Walt recollections of war rubbed me the wrong way. A particular phrase brought to mind a recent lecture of Tim O'Brien stories, about young men with old eyes:
Maybe it was the place; youth could not be maintained without innocence
Not a complaint, but more like a curiosity sidenote : it will be interesting to find out how the author will continue to produce dead bodies in a county that boasted in the first volume how there never was a murder in town for about twenty years. I counted about twenty bodies in the last year of so, granted with one book set in Philadelphia. Walt Longmire is up for re-election, and I must say, his clean record is going down the drain ;-)
I'm still planning to read at least a couple more books in the series this year, despite my slight disillusionment with the last one.