Very strong for a series opener…with complex characters who have long histories together.I always have problems with plots that involve rape and especially violence toward children.it is handled well here and I’ll definitely try more books in the series. The settings and bits of culture and folklore make it absolutely fascinating ( )

Johnson does a good job of evoking the landscape and the people of Wyoming. The story covers a series of revenge killings, and Sheriff Longmire's reluctant pursuit of the murderer. The victims pretty much deserved what they got, IMHO. I enjoyed following this dogged lawman as he put the clues together. The story did drag in places, and I thought the solution kind of came out of nowhere, but overall it was a satisfying read. ( )

1st in series. KIRKUS REVIEWRevenge killings disrupt the serenity of a small western community and greatly complicate life for a sheriff nearing retirement.Kent Haruf?s readers will feel immediately comfortable in newcomer Johnson?s Absaroka County. Everybody in the beautiful, isolated Wyoming area knows each other. Conversations are spare and, if not always irony-free, certainly lacking coastal self-pity, analysis, or politics. And the inhabitants are smart enough to handle their own business, even when that business is murder and the clues are few. Responsibility for solutions rests in the broad hands of Sheriff Walt Longmire, Vietnam Marine veteran and widower, overweight, and excessively fond of beer. The victims are two of the four local high-school boys who got off way too lightly for the rape of and assault on Melissa Little Bird, a mentally disabled Cheyenne girl. Longmire realizes after the first murder that if his plan to name his successor is to succeed¥tricky enough even before the murders, since his fondest wish is to pass the badge to Deputy Victoria Moretti, a foul-mouthed but extremely capable PhiladelphianÂ¥he?s going to have to solve things before the state police muscle in. Considerable assistance with the police work comes to Walt from Cheyenne publican Henry Standing Bear, the sheriff?s best friend and also a Vietnam vet. Henry is Walt?s Virgil as the sheriff steps onto the local reservation. Melissa had many friends and a large family, and feelings ran high after the rape. Bullets at the crime scene seem to have come from an elegant 19th-century rifle like the one owned by Melissa?s father. Moving carefully (the pace is exceptionally deliberate), Walt reconstructs crime scenes and picks through lab analyses, but the sparse clues are slow to yield their truths. Indian spirits step in to help, but they don?t solve the puzzle. Walt does.The police work comes slow and the solution comes out of nowhere, but Johnson?s gorgeous Wyoming and agreeable characters make the trip very, very pleasant.

(2005) First in Longmire series introduces Sheriff in Durant Wyoming who is not young but is trying to fill the shoes of a retiring sheriff with a staff that doesn't really want to work with him and an Indian friend who is one of the suspects in the murder of one of 4 men who had been accused of raping a native American girl years ago. When he solves the case, discovers that it is the woman he almost gets involved with who was raped by her father as an adolescent and is taking revenge for the other girl's rape.(PW) A strong sense of place, a credible plot and deft dialogue lift Johnson's good-humored debut novel, the first of a new series, set in Bighorn Mountain country. Walt Longmire, the veteran sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyo., usually has little to do on his patrols. When Cody Pritchard is found shot to death near the Cheyenne reservation, everyone, including Deputy Victoria Moretti, a transplanted Philadelphian, believes he died in an accident. But two years earlier, Cody was one of four high schoolers convicted of raping a young Native American girl. All were given suspended sentences, and when another of the four turns up dead, it appears that someone is out for revenge. As fear mounts, Sheriff Longmire feels tension in the air between the white population and the Native American community, and he's not pleased to think that his lifelong friend, Henry Standing Bear, might be directly involved in the murders. While the prose could stand tautening at times simply to up the suspense, Johnson has made an assured start that should appeal to a wide range of mystery fans.

I'm a fan of the Longmire TV show on A&E and decided to read the books that the series is based on. This version of Longmire and the crew from Absaroka county is a little different from the one I am used to but I enjoyed this Western mystery and it was perfect to read while on vacation. There are 16 books in this series and I'm not sure if I'll make it through them all but I have already started on the second one.

( )