The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson

The body of a young man is found in Absaroka County, Wyoming. It is possible that Cody Pritchard is the victim of a hunting accident--or is someone seeking retribution for his part in raping a mentally disabled Cheyenne girl?

This book was on my radar after watching the first season of A&E's Longmire on the tube. The tv series has the same flavor as this first novel in Craig Johnson's series. I like both. Looking forward to reading more of the novels and watching the second season of the tv show.

I'm a huge fan of the TV show, but this book might be better. The characters are different than the show to some small extent, but mostly the same. The writing is superb and the story is as captivating as I knew it would be from watching the show.

I've enjoyed the Netflix series Longmire and thought of exploring the books. This first one was great because I didn't guess the culprit. It's been a while since I saw the pilot but I don't remember it being a woman and about her rape. If that's true, I find it interesting how they took the original plot and tweaked the ending; like the movie Clue.

Executive Summary: I thought this was kind of slow, but decent. Not sure if I'll continue on with the next one though.

Audiobook: I mostly only know George Guidall from the Dark Tower series. As such I kept comparing Walt Longmire to Roland Deschain and found Walt a bit wanting. That aside I feel like he was a good fit for the tone of the series.

Full Review
I was only vaguely aware of the TV show before picking this up on a daily deal. As I've been trying to branch out from Sci-Fi and Fantasy it seemed like a good mystery to pick up.

I thought the characters were interesting enough, but the action was very slow moving. Normally I like character driven stories, but in a mystery I expect a bit of a faster pace to things that we got here.

I didn't figure out the mystery until nearly the end, so that was a point in this book's favor. Then again I'm not sure the author gave too many clues either, so I'm not sure if there were more subtle or if the author simply wanted to make it very hard to figure out before the end.

I don't know much about Wyoming or the Native American tribes of the area, so I'm not sure of the accuracy. However it appears the author is from around there, so I'd imagine it should be somewhat interesting. I don't think I'm going to plan a trip to visit, but the way he describes it, I'd be more inclined to visit, at least during the warmer months.

At this point I'm not sure if I'll continue. It looks to be a long and continuing series. I'd probably be interested in at least reading the next book if I can get the audio cheap or from the library.