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Sometimes you're in the mood for a mystery, but you don't want one set in far-off lands, written by an author you seem to have nothing in common with. At Red Lodge Books, we like bringing in books that have a connection to our area. Here are just a few we'd like to recommend.
 Craig signing at Red Lodge Books |
Wyoming author Craig Johnson is hugely popular in our area. We particularly love his main character, Sheriff Walt Longmire. He's a very human, very real character. Unlike James Bond or Chuck Norris' "Walker, Texas Ranger" character, Walt doesn't take on five bad guys and walk away with his hat still in place and his suit unruffled. He's past his prime, and when he tackles the bad guy half his age, he gets his butt kicked and limps for the next two chapters. Craig's characters also have unique voices. You can tell who's talking without an endless stream of "said Walt" at the end of each line of dialog. Craig's books are set in a small Wyoming town on the edge of an Indian reservation. "Write what you know," say the English professors, and that is precisely what Craig does.
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Helena, Montana author John S. Fitzpatrick says that he found a manuscript, missing for the last 100 years, written by John Watson, Sherlock Holmes' erstwhile companion and chronicler. The four stories contained therein tell of Holmes and Watson visiting Montana in the late 1800s, where Holmes solved The Opera House Murder, The Tammany Affair, The Ghosts of Red Lion and The Mysterious Woman. Riverbend Publishing, here in Montana, put the four stories out in one volume, called Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles. Fitzpatrick's newest book is The Casebook of Sheriff Pete Benson, which tells the stories of a former big-city detective who has moved to Rhyolite County, Montana, where there are more cows than people. |
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 C J Box |
C J Box is another Wyoming author that's popular around Red Lodge. He has several standalone novels and a series that features Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett. Pickett isn't your typical mystery novel protagonist; he is married, living with his wife and daughters in a tiny house provided by the state and driving a Fish & Game pickup truck. As the author points out, Joe Pickett has no excess emotional baggage, no dark past, and he's a lousy shot. Game wardens aren't like detectives or sheriffs; they have a huge territory that can be extremely rough, and almost every person they walk up to in the wilderness is armed. Joe Pickett meets a wide variety of antagonists throughout the books, taking on everything from corrupt bureaucrats to environmental terrorists, and the books show both sides of a lot of issues we may not have considered. They're well-written, set locally, and researched impeccably.
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James Lee Burke may be best-known for his books of the South, but since he has homes in both Missoula, Montana and New Iberia, Louisiana, he knows the West, too, and he writes it very well. In particular, his character Billy Bob Holland, a former Texas Ranger, finds himself in Montana in the 3rd and 4th books of the series.
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We'll build up this list more over the next few days, and we welcome your input. Visit our Facebook page and leave comments there, stop by and chat with Gary, or shoot us an email. Take a peak at our full mystery/thriller list, and see some great books by Nevada Barr, James Crumley, Lynn Boughey, T L Hines, and more.
