The Cold Dish (Walt Longmire, #1) in Crazy Challenge Connection

Nov 28, 2014 Marla rated it really liked it

Shelves: adult, made-me-laugh, challenged, romance, series, mystery, recommended-to-me, paranormal, serial-killers, ghosts

3.5 stars. Sarcastic humor was amusing, but it took me a while to warm up to this writing. Walt has some great friends looking out for him. Mystery was interesting, but not outstanding. I'm not sure how I feel about (view spoiler)

I think I've decided that I like the writing style, but you have to be in the mood for a very descriptive character-driven story. It's not action-packed, but calm and fr ...more

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Nov 05, 2010 Martha rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, 2011, audible-downloads, western, 12-plus-4-challenge-2021, 2021

1st read/listen - 11/5/10 to 6/25/11
Very good mystery. I'll definitely read more by this author.

Reading this one again. April 14, 2021. ...more

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Oct 23, 2014 ilovebakedgoods (Teresa) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: killeen-library-paper, series, crime, mystery, contemporary-fiction, uniforms, 2014, slytherin-mmp

Superbly written, with rich, colorful, flawed and interesting characters. I will read the rest of this series in time.

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Mar 10, 2018 Chris rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mystery, series, fiction, western, wyoming

Do not read this book if you're just looking for a good mystery. The mystery of who is killing the white boys who raped an impaired Indian girl is only a very thin thread through the first half of this book--although that part of the story definitely takes over the last half. It seemed to me more like the main purpose of this book is to tell the story of Sheriff Walt Longmire, his best friend, Henry Standing Bear, and the people of Absaroka County, Wyoming and the nearby Indian reservation. And Do not read this book if you're just looking for a good mystery. The mystery of who is killing the white boys who raped an impaired Indian girl is only a very thin thread through the first half of this book--although that part of the story definitely takes over the last half. It seemed to me more like the main purpose of this book is to tell the story of Sheriff Walt Longmire, his best friend, Henry Standing Bear, and the people of Absaroka County, Wyoming and the nearby Indian reservation. And it is absolutely bloody brilliant. You can go pages and pages with barely a mention of the crime, and you won't care a bit because the writing is that good. I have never been to Wyoming, but Johnson's descriptions are so vivid that I could see every piece of it he wanted to show me. Walt and Henry are just a wonderful pair of characters who speak to, at, and over each other like a long-married couple. Their repartee can be both hilarious and heartbreaking. Walt is a widower who seems to be just barely existing in a half-finished log cabin. Johnson makes his sense of emptiness so very real without making it maudlin. For the first time in a long time he can almost see himself starting a new relationship. But he's also never gotten over the case of the gang rape of Henry's niece, an Indian girl with fetal alcohol syndrome. The four boys received very light punishments given the nature of the offense. Now someone is picking them off one by one with some unusual ammunition, and there is a very long list of suspects, including Henry. As we learn the back stories of individual characters, the story also slowly builds to an explosive climax. Magical realism, or maybe in this case mystical realism would be a better term, might seem out of place in a western mystery, but the life-saving appearance of dead Cheyenne at a critical point in the book works so perfectly. On the other end of the spectrum is one of the best-written car chase scenes I've ever read. I can't wait to read the next in the series. ...more

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Jul 10, 2012 Jane(Janelba) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, books-read-in-2012

I liked the book and story but found it really slow and not too gripping. Would have liked to give it 3 1/2 *'s but it's not possible on GR's. Not sure I liked the book enough to continue with the series. Perhaps it's my European mind and the rural traditional Wyoming. Just not sure. Maybe it was just not the right moment to read this book as I have people who recommended it to me and they loved it. ...more

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