Walt takes off for Mexico where the villain, Tomás Bidarte, has kidnapped his daughter, Cady, and taken her to the wilds of northern Mexico.
Bidarte had managed to survive a shootout in A Serpent’s Tooth. He has been on a campaign of revenge against Walt which has culminated with Cady’s kidnapping.
Walt, unwilling to wait for international co-operation between American and Mexican law enforcement, is on a one man mission to rescue Cady or die in the effort.
With the aid of a rambunctious U.S. Buck Guzmán from the Border Patrol, he slips across the border. Not surprisingly it is not difficult to sneak into Mexico.
He allies himself with a Mexican physician who has a local defence force keeping the drug gangs away from their area.
Nearby Bidarte has established a fiefdom based on drugs and violence. Mexican authorities have abandoned the area to drug lords.
The book proceeds as you would expect. The only law is the law of the gun. Walt retains his stubborn integrity.
The imagination comes with how the violent episodes play out. Some are very creative.
For the same reasons I did not like the 6th and final season of the T.V. series I did not enjoy Depth of Winter. The story line is almost cartoonish. The implauibilities are really impossibilities. The violence is constant. The clever Walt is absent though his wit is intact. The avenging lone Western lawman is iconic in American lore but no longer draws me.
I am reminded of how the Elvis Cole books by Robert Crais shifted from a focus on a bright sleuth to violence filled conclusions with little humour. I stopped reading the series in frustration.
As well, Depth of Winter had but cameo appearances from the regular characters such as Henry Standing Bear and Vic Moretti. It suffered from their absence.
There have been past books in the series which saw Walt venturing out alone on a quest but the series would then return to interesting stories in Absaroka County. Depth of Winter is Walt’s most violent solo venture. I will read the next book in the hope it is back to actual crime fiction rather than a body per page thriller. Walt deserves to be solving mysteries with his intelligence and but a touch of brawn.
****
Johnson, Craig – (2007) - The Cold Dish; (Best Fiction of 2007); (2008) - Death Without Company; (2008) - Kindness Goes Unpunished (Third Best Fiction of 2008); (2009) - Another Man’s Moccasins; (2011) - The Dark Horse; (2011) - Junkyard Dogs; (2012) - Hell is Empty; (2013) As the Crow Flies; (2013) - Longmire T.V. Series; (2014) - A Serpent's Tooth; (2015) - Radio in Indigenous Mystery Series; (2015) - Any Other Day; (2015) - Where is the Walt Longmire Series Headed; (2016) - Musings on the 5th Season of Longmire; (2017) - Dry Bones and Is the Largest T-Rex in Saskatchewan?; (2018) - An Obvious Fact; (2019) - The Western Star; Hardcover
Oh, I am sorry to hear this, Bill. I agree with you that Walt is so much more than a cartoonish one-man vigilante squad. I can understand his desperation to rescue Cady, but that can be handled in a lot of different ways. I am sorry to hear that this one didn't live up to the standards set by the other books in the series. I really hope this isn't going to be a pattern, as I've enjoyed the books, too, as much for the intelligent, thoughtful character of Walt Longmire as for anything else.
ReplyDeleteMargot: Thanks for the comment. Walt Longmire was never Ramboesque in my opinion. There was precious little in Depth of Winter that was intelligent or thoughtful.
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