Boy howdy
The
fourth of Craig Johnson’s Wyoming police procedural novels with a Western
tinge, after The Cold Dish (2004), Death Without Company (2006) and Kindness Goes Unpunished (2007), is Another Man’s Moccasins (Viking Penguin,
2008). Although in some ways Kindness
Goes Unpunished was the least Western of them to date, being set in
Philadelphia and essentially an urban crime drama, in other ways Another Man’s Moccasins, despite being
set back in Wyoming, is less Western because it is the Vietnam book.
Vol 4
We knew
that Sheriff Walter Longmire and his Cheyenne friend Henry Standing Bear had
served in Vietnam. This novel is one of those two-in-one plots with parallel (typographically
distinguished) mysteries going on, one in present-day Wyoming and the other in
the lead-up to the Tet Offensive in 1967/8. The two plots are thematically
linked (the Wyoming one concerns the murder of a Vietnamese girl) but
essentially distinct.
Tet
The
title, which reminds us of the John Simon song, comes from an old Indian
prayer, “Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have
walked a mile in his moccasins.” The moccasins concerned are those of a giant
Indian found living in a culvert under the highway and at first prime suspect
for the murder. But when Walt learns of his life and what he has suffered and
has walked a while in his shoes, he builds a rapport with the guy and lets him
go.
On one
level this is just a straight whodunit, or in this case two whodunits, and on
that level I must avow that I guessed quite early, both in Wyoming and Vietnam,
who did indeed dun it. But it’s the Western-ness which gives these books their
charm. Walt is no Raylan Givens and the TV Longmire
is certainly no Justified but in a
much more down-home, country-sheriff way Longmire is an attractive hero. There’s
also the soap-opera tinge to the extended tale as we follow other characters
like daughter Cady (rehabilitating back in Wyoming after her Philadelphia
assault and getting it on with Vic’s brother – we’ll see how that pans out) and
renew acquaintance with stalwarts like dispatcher Ruby and places like the Busy
Bee diner.
Where is
the mythical Absaroka County? Well, it has to be Johnson County, doesn’t it?
Talking about body dumps, Walt says,
To the north, Sheridan County has
two unsolved, and Natrona County to the south has five.
We know
that Sheridan is the nearest ‘big’ town and the foothills of the Bighorns lie
to the west, where Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch had their Hole in the Wall
hideout, which features a lot in this episode. Still, who cares, really where it is. 'Somewhere in Wyoming' will do fine.
There
are several other Western references, such as (naturally) to The Virginian.
When a Vietnamese bouncer in the red light district invites young Walt to make
love to himself and calls him the issue of a female dog, he “slowly smiles his
best Powder River grin” and replies, “Smile when you call me that.”
Smile when you call me that
Once you
are ‘into’ this series you’ll have to read Another
Man’s Moccasins but anyway it will repay a purchase in terms of enjoyment,
especially for Westernistas who also happen to like hard-boiled detectives.
Enjoy.
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