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topdragon 's review for:
Hell Is Empty: A Longmire Mystery
by Craig Johnson
The 7th novel in the Walt Longmire series finds Walt transporting Raynaud Shade, a Crow Indian sociopath and a recent confessed murderer of a ten year old boy, as well as a couple of other convicts to a multi-agency task force including the FBI. Walt doesn’t trust the contracted transport company to do the job themselves but despite Walt’s efforts, thanks to the assistance of others, Shade escapes. This leads Walt on the most perilous adventure of his career as he chases Shade toward the very top of Cloud Peak, through icy blizzard conditions, braving the extreme explosive heat of a forest fire, and other extreme situations.
The novel is not so much a mystery as a thriller since we know the bad guy from the very beginning. There are mysterious elements to be sure, not the least of which is Walt’s own sanity as the brutal conditions and stress make him question whether he is seeing ghosts or if perhaps he is one himself. In essence, this is a survival story. It's not the first time Walt has been up against such harsh conditions but this time is worse than others. The book is really a Walt-centric story with the rest of his staff and friends putting in only cameo appearances. I thought it interesting that the story includes multiple references to a paperback copy of Dante’s Inferno that is carried along on the adventure and, indeed, this novel has many parallels to that classic work.
One thing I really like about this series is that I never know what I am going to get. There is certainly no formulaic plot as this one most certainly proves. These books seem to keep getting better and better.
The novel is not so much a mystery as a thriller since we know the bad guy from the very beginning. There are mysterious elements to be sure, not the least of which is Walt’s own sanity as the brutal conditions and stress make him question whether he is seeing ghosts or if perhaps he is one himself. In essence, this is a survival story. It's not the first time Walt has been up against such harsh conditions but this time is worse than others. The book is really a Walt-centric story with the rest of his staff and friends putting in only cameo appearances. I thought it interesting that the story includes multiple references to a paperback copy of Dante’s Inferno that is carried along on the adventure and, indeed, this novel has many parallels to that classic work.
One thing I really like about this series is that I never know what I am going to get. There is certainly no formulaic plot as this one most certainly proves. These books seem to keep getting better and better.