Review: Dry Bones

Title: Dry Bones
Series: Walt Longmire
Author: Craig Johnson
Publisher: Viking
Genre: Mystery
320 pages
Release Date: May 12, 2015

When the largest, most complete fossil of a Tyrannosaurus Rex is discovered in Absaroka County, it would appear to have nothing to do with Walt. That is, until the Cheyenne rancher who finds her is found face down in a turtle pond. As a number of parties vie for ownership of the priceless remains, including rancher Danny Lone Elk’s family, the Cheyenne tribe, the Deputy Attorney General, and a cadre of FBI men, Walt must recruit undersheriff Victoria Moretti, Henry Standing Bear, and Dog to investigate a sixty-six million year-old cold case that’s starting to heat up fast.

-taken from Goodreads

I received this book as a part of Penguin's First to Read program. I usually request multiple books in the hopes I'll get picked for something...anything...and this one sounded good so I requested it. I have now learned my lesson. I should always research the book at least a little bit because Dry Bones turned out to be book #11 in a series! Whoops - I ended up with lots of wondering who people were and being given glimpses of past events that I knew nothing about. I have to hand it to Craig Johnson though, because he was not one to review copious amounts of detail from previous books and had I read the rest of the series, I would have been really happy about that.

As for the book itself, I did enjoy it. Johnson has a very dry way of writing in. He lays out the facts and tells you a story without cluttering up pages with long descriptive prose and emotions. I still felt like I connected with the characters and it made the book feel fast-paced and constantly moving forward.

I really like Longmire as a character - I love his dry sense of humor the most. It's written from his perspective and I actually chuckled out loud at some his inner thoughts about people. Johnson has an interesting way with phrases that was very entertaining for me. For example, when he said a man "looked like a bad smell." I love interesting writing that avoids cliches and overused phrases!

I definitely plan to start this series from the beginning some time in the future.

Buy it: Amazon, Barnes and Noble