First Frost

It's a yearly tradition: the annual trip back to Absaroka to catch up with Walt, Vic, Henry, and the rest. It's one of the few books I look forward to every year, and one of the few writers who doesn't misfire.

This time, Walt is dealing with the fallout from the previous book, THE LONGMIRE DEFENSE, and is being brought up on possible charges for a shooting that occurred at the end end of the previous book. He is also dealing with a story from the past, brought about when his fiancee, Vic Moretti, finds a behemoth longboard in Walt's basement.

What's a landlocked cowboy in Wyoming doing with a piece of vintage surf-riding wood?

Well, turns out–that's a long story.

Masterfully constructed by weaving the present into the past, Walt tells Vic the story of why he still has a longboard from his college days at USC, and details what seems to be the first time Walt and Henry really put their heads into a hornets' nest.

With the Vietnam war looming for both Walt and Henry, they had a week before they had to report to their respective locations for basic training. Intending to drive the country from Los Angeles to Fort Polk and Parris Island, respectively, karma has other plans when Walt and Henry end up sidelined in a barren nothing of a town where the only people there really want them to leave.

The town was dealing with its own history of being part of the internment camps for the Japanese in WWII, but that's only half the story.

Written in Craig Johnson's practiced and familiar laid-back prose, Walt and Henry seem to have odds stacked well against them this time.

We know that Walt and Henry will survive their encounter in the desert–but finding out how that first Walt-and-Henry adventure turns them into the men we know so well from the later adventures was a fascinating piece of history for this acclaimed and well-loved series.

It's a yearly tradition: the annual trip back to Absaroka. And it's also a yearly tradition that Johnson swings for the fences and knocks it out of the park.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s First Frost About?

This is a dual-timeline novel—which isn’t altogether new for the Longmire books. In the present time, the shootings that ended The Longmire Defense* are being looked at, and Walt’s possibly facing criminal charges.

* I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that. Most Longmire books end with one.

In the other timeline—which gets most of the ink—we watch Walt and Henry try to drive cross-country after graduating college in California so they can report for Basic Training on the East Coast. A road mishap and a bit of bad navigation on Walt’s part result in them getting stuck in a small Arizona town for a few days, where they find some trouble.

Now

On the one hand, I get the antagonism that Walt and Vic show toward the proceedings because it’s instinctual to get defensive when someone’s questioning your actions (and, well, Vic’s antagonistic about a lot). But it seems excessive—Walt’s enough of a believer in doing things The Right Way (in contrast to his grandfather or Lucian, for example), that he should be in favor of this exercise.

That said…it’s clearly motivated by politics and big-money-fueled corruption. So maybe it’s justifiable for them to push back against this. I’m not entirely convinced that the way this stage of the investigation ends is really less corrupt than the way it starts.

Then

It’s 1964 and the first thing we see is Walt and Henry surfing one last time before taking off on their drive to Oklahoma for Henry to see some family and then to their respective bases. Everything that happens in California is vintage Johnson and if he’d maintained that quality, I’d have been very happy.

But once Walt breaks something in their truck when he breaks to avoid a dog in the road (coyote, Henry insists), I think the whole thing goes to pot. Walt thinks something’s hinky in the tiny and sparsely populated town they find themselves in. Rather than just waiting for the truck to get fixed so they can hit the road, he starts asking questions and annoying all the wrong people.

Meanwhile, Henry plays tourist, checking out the abandoned Japanese Internment Camp nearby (which, of course, ends up playing a role in what Walt’s stirring up) and flirting with a local young woman.

It’s not long before people are starting to end up dead and Walt’s life becomes endangered.

So, what did I think about First Frost?

If I think about this as Johnson’s tribute to Route 66 (and, boy howdy, was it one) and a way for him to talk about Japanese Internment Camps, I like this more. If I think about this as a Longmire novel, my regard diminishes. I do frequently enjoy Johnson multitasking—talking about Van Gogh’s murder, the Sturgis rally, Native American Women going missing, and so on, while telling a Longmire story—so that’s not it. I just don’t think the stories were executed as well as Johnson usually does.

Both stories wrapped up too easily—a little too _____ ex machina (I can’t tell you what non-deus entities were involved). At the same time, the 1964 story took a little too long to come to its resolution. I’m not sure how that’s not contradictory, but it’s not (at least in my mind).

I believe the major function of the present storyline was to set-up a future novel or two (see also: the first time Walt and Henry watched Lolo Long’s niece, Jayla, play basketball)—so I could come around to appreciate what Johnson was doing here. But what we saw in First Frost left me wanting.

The 1964 story ultimately suffered from what a lot of prequels do—it’s hard to believe that the Walt and Henry who just finished college act so much like Walt and Henry with their respective military trainings and decades of experience do. I had no problem when we looked at Walt as an MP (in whatever book that was), I think Johnson got it right there, ditto for rookie Walt in The Western Star.

I’m actually not entirely wild about the portrayal of the Cheyenne Nation in the 1964 Story, actually. Almost all of it seemed off—but I think it’s a good thing, it shows that life, experience, and maturation changed Henry.

Obviously, time and re-reads/listens might change what I think about it, but on the whole, this one gets a “not bad” from me. I am curious about the stories I think were set up and think we could be in for some fun there (and a potentially good way to get Walt out of Absaroka County to keep the body count from rising).

Long-time fans will find enough to satisfy them, people curious about the series should start elsewhere.