{"id":13125,"date":"2019-12-02T19:26:26","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T00:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=13125"},"modified":"2019-12-02T19:26:26","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T00:26:26","slug":"an-obvious-fact-by-craig-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=13125","title":{"rendered":"‘An Obvious Fact,’ by Craig Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I read the first Longmire novel,<\/strong> The Cold Dish<\/em> by Craig Johnson, and reviewed it a while back. I wasn\u2019t overwhelmed, partly because outdoorsy mysteries aren\u2019t my favorite fare, and (probably) partly because it was so different from the TV series. But I\u2019m borrowing more books from the library these days, and I figured I\u2019d take a chance on another volume. This one is An Obvious Fact<\/a><\/em>, a much more recent entry in the series. And it was pretty good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In An Obvious Fact <\/em>(the title is a reference to Sherlock Holmes, and there are Holmes references all through it), Sheriff Walt Longmire and his friend Henry Standing Bear are off to Sturgis, South Dakota and environs for the annual biker rally. Henry is a biker, and has been going back every year since his youth, trying to break a record he set in a dirt bike hill climbing competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s meant to be a vacation, but they get drawn into the investigation of an accident that sent a young biker to the hospital. Police suspect that the young man was smuggling drugs, but no traces of drugs have been found. The situation is aggravated by the fact that they run into the biker\u2019s mother, who was once Henry\u2019s lover. And \u2013 just possibly \u2013 her son might be Henry\u2019s. Walt\u2019s suspicions \u2013 along with those of his undersheriff \u201cVic\u201d Moretti, who also shows up \u2013 turn toward a reclusive local tycoon who lives in a fortified compound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It takes some adjustment to get used to the original literary version of this series. Walt is fatter and less handsome than the actor on TV, and also funnier. He does not suffer from existential angst. In fact these books are quite lighthearted, until they get to the violence part (and even some of that is rendered comical by Vic\u2019s gung-ho aggressiveness). The characters are very well drawn, making one wonder why the TV writers felt it necessary to alter them. I enjoyed An Obvious Fact<\/em>, and recommend it with only the usual cautions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read the first Longmire novel, The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson, and reviewed it a while back. I wasn\u2019t overwhelmed, partly because outdoorsy mysteries aren\u2019t my favorite fare, and (probably) partly because it was so different from the TV series. But I\u2019m borrowing more books from the library these days, and I figured I\u2019d … Continue reading ‘An Obvious Fact,’ by Craig Johnson<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[173,585,3297],"class_list":["post-13125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-an-obvious-fact","tag-craig-johnson","tag-walt-longmire"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}