LAND OF WOLVES

Craig Johnson. LAND OF WOLVES. Viking, 2019.

A Walt Longmire mystery, found at the library book sale. Read it in two days. Walt is getting old. People are hinting at retirement. He is still wounded from some trouble in Mexico. A dead sheep, then a dead shepherd, brings Walt back into contact with the Basque community around Absaroka, Wyoming. Henry Standing Bear makes only a brief appearance, with some input about shamans and wolf legends. Vic continues to come on to Walt but his wounds make him too tired to take her up on it. 

Reading this makes me angry. I assume Johnson writes for an all-male readership. That that's why his female lead, Vic from Philly, sounds like "male athlete of the year with boobs"? Has "me too" not reached Wyoming yet? Not that she is harassed at the workplace. But she is sleeping with her boss. Office politics and work cannot help but suffer. And, as much as Walt is an upstanding ethical and educated man, he should know better. One of them should resign.

Sorry. Never say 'should'. I've broken one of my own rules.

A QUESTION OF BLOOD

Ian Rankin. A QUESTION OF BLOOD. Orion, 2003.

Another older Rebus novel found at the Sardis OAP clubroom. I remember this one from television. The novel seems more convoluted, detailed, with more examples of police incompetence. Rebus has scalded his hands which makes him look guilty in a death by fire of a low-life who had been hassling Siobhan. At the scene of a school shooting, conclusions are jumped to before evidence has been analyzed. Themes of gun violence, mass shootings, ex-military PTSD, government cover-ups, shady politicians, unethical journalists are still relevant, even rampant, today, twenty years later. And Rebus is in pretty bad shape, with smoking and alcohol. Lucky for him, his old out-dated techniques still seem to get results. 

I'm keeping this one as there are extras, maps, a discussion guide. 

BLACK and BLUE

Ian Rankin. BLACK & BLUE. Orion, 1997.

Found two unfamiliar Rebus titles at the Sardis OAP free library. Exchanged for a Jack Reacher. This one, quite early, is about the chase for Bible John and his copy cat, Johnny Bible. Involves much travel, Edinburgh to Glasgow to Aberdeen to Shetland and out to the oil rigs, one named after Bannockburn. An old case haunts Rebus after two suicides, interviews interfering with the two or three cases he is working on. Jack Morton assigned to shadow him. Gill and Siobhan providing backup. 

NATASHA

David Bezmozgis. NATASHA. Harper, 2004.

A linked collection of seven short stories about a Russian immigrant family in Toronto, told from a young boy's POV. Very engaging, especially the eponymous story.

DYING LIGHT

Stuart McBride. DYING LIGHT. Harper, 2006.

This is my first McBride. Set in Aberdeen. Manic. Brutal. Violent. Funny. DS Lazarus Logan is trying to work his way off the Screw-Up Squad while staying out of the boss's way. Good instincts but somehow, not quick enough. Coworkers and friends are falling as collateral damage as the nasty vanguard of blackguards from Edinburgh attempt to move in.

IN THE ROUND: TRACES OF LIGHT

Mary Keane. IN the ROUND: TRACES of LIGHT. 2023.

A creative non-fiction memoir by my writer friend and former writing group mate, Mary. Superbly written. Centering on her early experiences living near Weymouth on the UK coast during WW II. With the focus on her childhood relationship with a severe and critical grandmother. Weaves time and place, childhood and adult, with the sea linking and separating, giving and taking life. Touches on the way we take too long to ask the important questions then have to use ephemera and imagination to create our own collage of the lives of our ancestors, whose presence is revealed in flashes in the mirror. 

The round refers to the lighthouses her grandfather tended. The cover, a Victory brooch. 

WITHOUT FAIL

Lee Child. WITHOUT FAIL. Penguin, 2002. An earlier Reacher story. A friend of his late brother Joe calls Jack in to do an assessment on the security procedures around the vice president elect. Set in Bismarck, DC, and Wyoming. Found this copy at a thrift store and could not resist. Another lost weekend, 550 pages.

The THEORY of CROWS

David A. Robertson. THE THEORY OF CROWS. Harper, 2022.

Picked this up from the National Indigenous Day display at the library. Would like to own a copy. DAR's first adult novel. Set in Winnipeg and the rivers around Norway House. Two more good reasons to want to read it. Matthew McIvor and his daughter Holly decide to take some of Moshom's ashes home to the trapline where he grew up. Their relationship has had its tensions. Holly feels that her father has failed to support her, did not show up at her water polo meet. And that he is skating on thin ice (sexting a woman from work). She learns through counselling, dreams, secret letters, that his behaviour is part of his own being "fucked up" by anxiety (and medication) which he has not yet learned to manage on his own. Once the plot gets to their being in a canoe on the river, think a kinder gentler more northern Deliverance.

The land remembers you and you remember the land, even if you nave never been there before. And the crows remember too. Bears are our relatives.