Review of Hell Is Empty by Craig Johnson

No, you haven't lost an entire week, nor have I forgotten what day of the week this is, but instead of my usual Friday's Odds and Ends, I am doing something different today. It started when Yolanda Renee notified me that she had some reviews of my stories over at her blog, Defending The Pen. Of course I had to go see what she had to say about my short stories and one of my mysteries. What a thrill it was to see how much she liked Stalking Season, the second book in the Seasons Series of mysteries.

It was also neat to discover a regular blog hop, The Cephalopod Coffeehouse, started by The Armchair Squid that features book reviews. Not just any old review, but a review of the best book you read in the past month. This feature runs every month on the last Friday, and it is a great way to share the best of what you have been reading.  If you would like to join the blog hop, just click HERE for the link! 

My offering for the day is Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson.

This is book seven in the series that features Wyoming sheriff, Walt Longmire. I first met this character in The Dark Horse  and knew I had found another favorite character who has his own way of finding justice. I was thrilled when "Longmire" started as a series on television. It can be seen every Monday on the A&E cable channel. 

In  Hell is Empty,  Longmire is pitted against the elements as he struggles to capture an escaped convict. Craig Johnson is a master at setting a goal and then throwing obstacle after obstacle in the path of the protagonist, and Walt is battered by the wind and blinding snow in a blizzard and nearly frozen in the sub-zero temperatures. Some of the description was so strong, I wanted to get a warm blanket for myself.

Like a previous story in the Longmire series, Walt is up on the Bighorn Mountains where the lines between reality and delusion fade as his body struggles to survive the challenges of the weather and his relentless pursuit of justice. This is all presented in a narrative that is literary in style and thoroughly engaging. 

Part of the delusion in this story revolves around Virgil White Buffalo, who saves Walt on several occasions, but then it is not clear who was the savior and who was being saved. Virgil is a terrific character, a huge bear of a man, who is book smart and nature smart.

I enjoyed so much about this story, especially the connection to Dante's Inferno and the powerful depiction of the landscape and nature of this part of the west in the winter. The story is frightening in places, but the tension is eased with the trademark Longmire wit.

If you don't join the blog hop, please do leave a comment and let me know what terrific book you read this month. And if you have not already, do that author a favor and post a review on Amazon and Goodreads.

Monday Morning Musings

Since it is almost noon here in Texas, maybe I should title this, Monday Afternoon Musings. Sorry I'm late. Life keeps interfering.

One nice thing to interfere has been ongoing enthusiasm for the Winnsboro history book that I wrote with our local historian. Here I am with Bill Jones at a recent signing event. I was so thrilled to get this book done for Bill. Everybody in town kept saying we needed to get a book published with all the historical facts that he has stored in his memory banks, and then Arcadia Publishing contacted me wanting an Images of America - Winnsboro book. Talk about something that was meant to be.

Today I am a guest on Yolanda Renee's blog, Defending the Pen. If you have a moment to hop over, you can find out which of my kids I love the most. :-) This is a terrific blog and Yolanda is generous in supporting her fellow authors.

On another note, deliberations for sentencing Nidal Hasan began today, and yesterday a Dallas morning news columnist posed an interesting question on the issue, "What's worse than death?" The columnist suggests that maybe life in solitary confinement  in prison would be a worse punishment for a man who welcomes death because he would be a martyr and a hero to fellow jihadists overseas. Not to mention depriving him of the 70 virgins that are supposed to be part of his eternal reward.  

Proponents of the death penalty say Hasan deserves to die for his crimes, but I agree with the columnist.  Hasan, who was wounded in the shoot-out at Fort Hood, is paralyzed from the chest down, and a greater punishment would be for him to spend many more long years suffering.

In an article in The Dallas Morning News, Dave Lieberman reported about a Texas resident who recently noted a Medicare over-payment that was double what the actual bill was. When she reported that she was told by a medicate representative that it is now standard payment for some services, and the system automatically pays that amount, no matter what the billing amount is. When the woman asked why each bill is not paid according to the billing amount, she was told that this is the system that is in place and it all balances out in the long run. Some submitted bills are higher than the standard payment amount, so that cancels the over-payments.

Oh, really? And we wonder why Medicare is in trouble.A charter school in Houston is a little more than red-faced after it was revealed that administrators misused $5.3 million in federal funds for trips to Las Vegas and New York and cruises. The two top administrators also received salaries of $440,000 while enjoying all those trips and the perks that came with the trips.

This type of misappropriation is too common in school districts across our country, and the trickle-down effect is always a direct negative impact on students and teachers. We can't pay teachers a decent wage for the work they do. Parents are having to purchase more and more supplies for their children, as schools can no longer provide them. Just the other day I was asked at the grocery store if I would like to buy a box of tissues to be donated to the local school.

Now to end on a lighter note, here are a couple of jokes I found on Jokes and Humor for Kids. I thought they would tickle the childish funny bone in all of us.

Question: Why are ghosts bad liars?
Answer: Because you can see right through them

Question: What dog can jump higher than a building?

Answer: Any dog, buildings can't jump!