Thu 24 Jul 2014
Reviews by L. J. Roberts
CRAIG JOHNSON – Any Other Name. Viking, hardcover, May 2014. Police procedural: Sheriff Walt Longmire, 10th in series. Setting: Wyoming.
First Sentence: Joseph Conrad said that if you wanted to know the age of the earth, look upon the sea in a storm; if you want to know the age of the Powder River country just be on the wrong side of a coal train.
Sheriff Walt Longmire is about to be a grandfather —very soon. He has promised his daughter, Cady, that he will be in Philadelphia for the baby’s birth. His old friend and former boss, Lucian Connally, asks him for a favor of going with him to an adjacent county and visit a woman whose daughter is missing. One missing woman leads to secrets, corruption and possible death.
Johnson is the epitome of a story teller. You are not a viewer; you are a participant. How does he do it? He starts by hooking you into the story from the very beginning by his strong voice and the ability to create a very visual sense of place. He makes you feel and see what he describes. His inclusion of spiritualism adds to the sense of place, the strength of the character and the story.
Part of that voice is his humor. It’s not situational, but dry and natural. His dialogue is among the best being written. Most of it is his characters. Walt is such an engaging character. He is truly the “long arm of the law†and well-liked by his colleagues. But he’s not infallible nor is he superman.
The supporting characters of Henry Standing Bear and Undersheriff Vic Moretti, Lucian and Dog are significant to the story. Best of all, even the secondary characters are well developed. None of Johnson’s characters are flat or stereotypes. They all have a part to play in the effectiveness of the story. Even the weather becomes a character within the story.
Any Other Name is an excellent book. It’s filled with tension and breath-catching suspense, but the pacing is perfect with enough pauses in the action for balance. Johnson is an author who both entertains you and educates you. There’s not a single wrong step to be found.
Rating: Excellent.
July 25th, 2014 at 6:57 am
A very interesting review. I will have to look for this book.
July 25th, 2014 at 7:08 am
I agree. The television series gets a lot of attention, and the casting of Aussie Robert Taylor was a brilliant one and has made watching the series worthwhile, but some of the changes from the books have been hard to understand.
Read the books.
July 25th, 2014 at 5:00 pm
The only rule that is never broken in Hollywood is that no matter how good the original producers and script writers have to put their two cents in, and usually it is worth about two cents, witness Edward Arnold’s laughing Nero Wolfe or most of Ustinov’s Poirots.