(2020) One of the funniest and fast reads of the series. After returning from the Mexico event, Longmire gets involved in an attempt to find a long lost painting of the battle at Little Bighorn. An old Army veteran had come into possession of the work of art and sold it for $ 1M to a shady art dealer. The dealer's assistant decides to steal it and all hell breaks loose. Very good. KIRKUS: 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, 2020ISBN: 978-0-52-552253-9Page Count: 336Publisher: Viking

One thing I enjoy in a good book is the sarcastic banter between the characters, possibly because that’s how I think and speak as well, but not nearly so clever. And Johnson excels at writing this banter. The final big scene has to be one of the best written and funniest I have ever read. If Walt retires, I really hope that Johnson either carries on with the series other characters, or creates a new world to drop in on. ( )

Western

Custer's Last Fight was destroyed in a fire at the 7th Cavalry headquaters at Ft, Bliss TX...but what if it didn't burn up? Along the way to finding the answer, Walt looks into the death of Charlie Lee Stillwell at at Veteran'ss Home. which was ruled to be natural causes. This gets Walt, Vic and Bear involved with a group of four wheel chair riding vets, the mystery of a partial painting of Custer's Last Stand, and a shoe box of one million dollars. Another good read from Craig Johnson. ( )

A bit of art history greets Walt when he arrives at the veteran's home after the death of an old soldier and family friend. Those ubiquitous bar prints of Custer's Last Stand had to start somewhere, and this book explores an interesting what if scenario, and bringing international intrigue to Wyoming. ( )