Other than the obvious fact that no sheriff in the history of Wyoming has ever seen this much action, this is another stellar Walt Longmire story. The humor is what gets me - it's oddly funny, it's funny in the face of tragedy, it's inappropriately funny and it made me laugh out loud it's so funny. I loved it.

I think I may have enjoyed this one even a tad bit more than the first in the Walt Longmire series, [b:The Cold Dish|109901|The Cold Dish (Walt Longmire, #1)|Craig Johnson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1398028367s/109901.jpg|105919]. That’s probably due to needing to devote less time to establishing the characters and leaving more time to developing the complex mystery plot. Of course there is still plenty of great character development here and really getting some good humor mixed in with the serious nature of the novel.

The story picks up a few months after the first novel ended. Christmas is soon to arrive and with it, Walt’s daughter Cady who also happens to be a practicing attorney. Unfortunately, a death at the local assisted living facility occurs and it turns out to be a case of poisoning…and we’re off to the races. I like the way the author mixes rural small county police procedural scenes with bursts of adrenaline-charged action sequences, all underneath a layer of well written character interaction that is just flat-out real. Several new characters are introduced, most notably, the former sheriff Lucian Connally, and a new deputy by the name of Santiago Saizarbitoria who is quickly dubbed “Sancho”. We’ll undoubtedly hear a lot more from these guys in future novels.

I can always tell when I am on to a really good series because I start to get all tingly just thinking about the next one, even way before it comes up in my power rotation. On to number three: [b:Kindness Goes Unpunished|236857|Kindness Goes Unpunished (Walt Longmire, #3)|Craig Johnson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1337375820s/236857.jpg|229416].

3.75 Stars

Just didn’t like this one as much as The Cold Dish. The writing and characters were still great, but the first third of the book was very slow.