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.

Book Review - The Eye of The Virgin by Frederick Ramsey

Thanks to Carl Brookins for another review. He does pick some good books to offer for our reading pleasure....

The Eye of the Virgin
By Frederick Ramsey
Pub. Poisoned Pen Press
June, 2010, Hard Cover.
254 pages.
ISBN: 9781590587607

Review by Carl Brookins

Sheriff Ike Schwartz is in it again.  Some odd break-ins have occurred in the area around the town of Picketsville, Virginia.  What were thieves looking for in the studio of an iconographer? Why is an unknown individual discovered dead of gunshot, but in a chair in the Picketsville clinic?  Are these incidents related?  And who is the mysterious woman Abe Schwartz has been squiring about?

Sparkling dialogue and a whee of a climactic scene distinguish this crime novel.  It's the xxx in Ramsey's continuing saga of the home-town adventures of ex-CIA spook Isaack Schwartz.  He's retired from the international scene to become the elected sheriff of the aforesaid Pickettsville, Virginia.  He's bright, sharp, aware of the ways of international espionage so when he sees it, he recognizes it.  As the elected sheriff he has to deal with a loose collection of varied and interesting characters.  Some of them make life quite interesting; the president of the local college, Ruth XXX for instance.  Others, inept contract spooks and burglars, for example, are dangerous.  Schwartz and his deputies manage to keep the peace and solve crimes in interesting if not always legal ways.

They are aided in their tasks, as are readers who find their way to this lovely novel, by carefully thought out if sometimes complicated plots, good pace, and crackling spot-on dialogue. Threaded through the cleverness and the funny bits are thoughtful musings on the state of world affairs today in which enemies become friends and friends enemies.

An excellent enjoyable novel


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Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com   www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

Book Review - Snakehead by Peter May

Thanks to Carl Brookins for another terrific review....

Snakehead
by Peter May
Poisoned Pen Press
Hardcover, 312 pages,
ISBN: 9781590586068

This is the ourth in the author's China Thriller series to be published by this press. Make no mistake this is one scary and thrilling book. So thrilling, in fact I had the sense toward the end of being carried just a bit over the top. The novel brings back two of May's most endearing characters, forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell, American, and Beijing detective, Li Yan. But they are no longer in China. Campbell is now the county medical examiner based in Houston, Texas, and Li Yang is learning about and dealing with America's multiple and complex law enforcement agencies as a member of the Chinese Embassy staff in Washington, D.C.

Until a major tragedy brings them together, Campbell is not even aware that they are again in the same country although still thousands of miles physically and culturally apart. The tragedy that brings these two together are the deaths of scores of illegal Chinese immigrants being smuggled to the United State via the same pipeline and organization which smuggles drugs from South America to the U.S. In this incident, the dead are found in a refrigerated truck abandoned in Texas. Those deaths appear to be accidental until it is discovered the bodies have all been injected with a dangerous virus that has no known antidote.

Now the race is on to determine what the virus is, who is behind the multi-million dollar smuggling operation, the Snakehead of the title, and Li Yan and Margaret must try to set aside their own emotional difficulties in order to help literally, save the nation from a devastating plague.

The pace is fast, the writing always to the point, the characters are genuine in their language and their emotions, and most worrisome of all, the science is real. This is a novel with the potential to scare the pants off you.  It's timely, international in scope, a whirlwind of a thriller.

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Carl Brookins - www.carlbrookins.com www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island, Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

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NOTE: My publisher for Play it Again, Sam, Uncial Press,  is celebrating its fifth year in operation, and it all ends tomorrow. To join in the fun with a scavenger hunt and have a chance at winning a KOBO reader, visit the website.

Another contest is being held by Books We Love Publishing. Enter between now and December to win a Kindle.