Deep Freeze

Starred review from July 24, 2017
Bestseller Johnson pays homage to Agatha Christie in his cleverly plotted 13th Walt Longmire novel (after 2016’s An Obvious Fact), which takes place in both the past and the present. In 1972, Walt, an Absaroka County deputy and newly returned Vietnam War vet, joins his boss, Sheriff Lucian Connelly, for the Wyoming Sheriffs’ Association annual excursion across the state aboard the steam train Western Star. In Walt’s pocket is a copy of Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. On the train, Walt attracts the attention of Kim LeClerc, the comely companion of Sheriff George McKay, who warns the deputy to stay away from her. Soon afterward, during a station stop, someone knocks Walt out just as he’s about to reboard the train. Walt hitches a ride to the next stop, where he learns that McKay has disappeared and another sheriff has been shot dead. In the present day, Walt is opposed to the release of a serial killer, who’s dying and has been imprisoned for decades, for a personal reason that will catch readers by surprise. Witty dialogue abounds; when Kim asks Walt if he killed many babies in Vietnam, he replies, “Hardly any, they’re small… Hard to hit.” And Johnson winds up the whodunit with a solution that Christie could never have imagined. 15-city author tour. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents.

August 15, 2017
Virgil Flowers, of Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, works an altogether unremarkable murder and a surprisingly inventive case on the side.The night before Gina Hemming is fished from a frozen river, someone bashes her in the head with a champagne bottle shortly after a meeting of the committee to organize her 25th high school reunion. Since Gina holds the power of the purse over virtually everyone in Trippton--she inherited the town's bank on her father's death--and the bruises on her body suggest habitual S&M play, there are lots of suspects, from Lucy and Elroy Cheever, whose business loan application she was about to deny, to heavy-equipment operator Corbel Cain, her sometime lover, to Fred Fitzgerald, who recently purchased a whip from Bernie's Books, Candles 'n More. But none of them murdered Gina; the opening chapter shows lovelorn exterminator David Birkmann, who's been carrying a torch for her since their school days, killing her when she indicates in the most direct way possible that she doesn't return his interest. The investigation is every bit as routine as it sounds, and it's nice for Virgil that Sandford has thrown in an unrelated complication: the arrival of LA gumshoe Margaret Griffin, who's gotten the Minnesota governor's support in serving a federal cease and desist order against Virgil's classmate Jesse McGovern, who's been doing a brisk mail-order business hawking her X-rated creations, Barbie O and Boner Ken. On second thought--since the Barbie knockoffs get Virgil beaten up by four oversized females and his truck burned to the ground--it may be less nice for Virgil than for his fan base. As so often in Sandford's small-town adventures (Escape Clause, 2016, etc.), the greatest pleasures here are incidental: clipped conversations, quietly loopy humor, locals mouthing off to and about each other. Pull up a seat, make yourself comfortable, and enjoy.

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Starred review from September 15, 2017
Gina Hemming, the best-looking girl in Trippton, Minnesota's Class of '92, is rich and arrogant, thanks both to her beauty but also to inheriting the local bank from her father. On a cold January night, she gathers a group of classmates at her home to plan their twenty-fifth high-school anniversary. Among the attendees is David Brinkmann, the class clown. David had carried a torch for Gina since the summer after sixth grade. Now that he and Gina were both divorced . . . well, that plan went to hell in no time. Gina is found dead floating in the river, and Virgil Flowers from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is assigned the case. Virgil has worked another case in Trippton and reconnects with his old pal Johnson Johnson (not a typo), who becomes Virgil's unofficial assistant. There's also a parallel plot in which some unknown citizens are turning Ken and Barbie dolls into sex toys. The tenth Flowers novel is a knowing portrait of small-town life layered into a very well plotted mystery. Virgil understands that, in small towns, no one ever outgrows high school, and he uses that knowledge to unravel both mysteries by dissecting the relationships and economic realities in the town. One of the very best novels in a superior series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

May 15, 2017

Having investigated the murderous school board of Trippton, MN, Virgil Flowers isn't happy to be called back when a woman is found there encased in ice. Her death seems to be connected to the midwinter reunion of the high school class of 20 years past, whose members obviously take old grudges to the extreme. Tenth in the No. 1 New York Times best-selling Virgil Flowers series.

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