Not Johnson's best work but a pleasant composition demonstrating deft brushwork.
Sheriff Walt Longmire investigates a murder associated with a long-lost painting.
When Charley Lee Stillwater, a resident of the Veterans' Home of Wyoming, dies and a shoe box containing $1 million is found among his otherwise modest possessions, Sheriff Longmire, who had known Stillwater for years, is called in. Preliminary questioning of Lee's cronies in the home reveals that he had had shadowy meetings with people who might have an interest in art, and a fragment of a painted canvas among his things reinforces the notion that Lee has somehow been dealing in art. With the help of his Northern Cheyenne friend Henry Standing Bear, Longmire has the fragment analyzed, and he eventually establishes that it is part of a study for Custer's Last Fight by Cassilly Adams, a mural-size painting that was for years an iconic image of the Battle of the Greasy Grass but which was destroyed in a fire in 1946. Traveling with Standing Bear and pursuing, as it were, the ghosts of Custer and Sitting Bull, Longmire explores the complex of invention and fact that looms so large in the American consciousness. The value of the painting, in fact, derives not from its quality as art but from its participation in the creation of the Custer myth. This is good stuff, if a little discursive, and helps redress a historical imbalance. However, the measured tone and leisurely exploration give way to accelerating action and a somewhat fragmented plot. Some characters believe the painting still exists, and one, Count von Lehman, a slightly absurd caricature of art dealers, believes he paid a substantial amount to acquire it. Then von Lehman disappears, apparently murdered, and the niceties of civilized competition drop away. All's revealed in the end, of course. Some of the characters are richly drawn and, in the case of Standing Bear, warmly familiar, and the antics of Lee's Veterans' Home cronies are a sweet tribute to America's better angels, but the villains are disappointing, and while it's more a caper than a gritty tale, mortal crimes are committed, lives are changed or curtailed, and the plotting seems somehow less than the sum of its parts.
Not Johnson's best work but a pleasant composition demonstrating deft brushwork.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-52-552253-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.
Stephanie Plum’s 31st adventure shows that Trenton’s preeminent fugitive-apprehension agent still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, and needs every one of them.
The current caseload for Stephanie and Lula—the ex-prostitute file clerk at her cousin Vincent Plum’s bail bonds company, who serves as her unflappable sidekick—begins with two “failures to appear.” Eugene Fleck is suspected of being Robin Hoodie, who robs from the rich and, yes, distributes the proceeds to the poor. Racketeer Bruno Jug, who’s missed his court date on charges of tax evasion, is also suspected of drugging and raping a 14-year-old. But neither of these fugitives can hold a candle to Zoran Djordjevic, aka Fang, a self-proclaimed vampire wanted in connection with the gruesome fate of his late wife and three other missing women. As usual, Stephanie’s personal life is just as helter-skelter as her professional life as a bounty hunter. She’s managed to get herself engaged both to Det. Joe Morelli, of the Trenton PD, and Ranger, a former Special Forces agent who runs a private security firm; she thinks she may be pregnant; and she’s willing to marry the father, whichever of her fiances that turns out to be. On top of it all, her nothingburger schoolmate Herbert Slovinski suddenly pops up at one of the funerals she ferries her Grandma Mazur to, hitting on her relentlessly and gilding his importunities by cleaning and painting her shabby apartment and laying new carpet. Luckily, Lula’s on hand to offer cupcakes that stave off the worst disasters, and whenever this hodgepodge threatens to slow down, another FTA appears, or fails to appear.
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781668003138
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
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