September 2020

MysteryPeople’s Pick of the Month is Craig Johnson’s Next To Last Stand. Read on for Scott M.’s thoughts on the latest Sheriff Longmire caper.

“Unless you know your craft, you can not express your art.” – Alfred Hitchcock

This quote kept popping up in my mind, starting at page one and all the way to the final sentence of Craig Johnson’s latest Sheriff Walt Longmire novel, Next To Last Stand. Johnson tells this story with such a light and humorous touch, it can be easy to miss many of the themes and ideas he explores, seeing it as one of his “funny books.” That said, you would be numb to miss the emotion those themes touch.

It begins with Walt chatting with The Wavers, a group of elderly vets who sit in their souped-up wheelchairs outside the Wyoming Home For Sailors And Soldiers, waving at passing motorists. In Walt’s position we view and understand these men the traveling families don’t see through their windshield. It subtly leads into one of the main themes of the book concerning men who will never stop being soldiers.

One of the Wavers, Charlie Lee Stillwater has passed. A Black vet and amateur student of western history and art, Charlie was a favorite of Walt’s daughter Cady. He appears to have died of natural causes. The mystery concerns a million dollars found under his bed in a shoebox.

Also found in Charlie’s room is an artist’s study of a cavalry soldier fighting a Native American. Walt soon matches it to the painting Custer’s Last Fight by Cassilly Adams, made famous by the Anheuser Busch company from the reprints they sent to practically every bar in the country. History says the original burned up in a fire at Fort Bliss in 1946. However, that may not be the case and Charlie may have had the painting in his possession, brokering a deal. Soon Walt is plunged into the western art world, dealing with high Wyoming society, dangerous Russians, and history versus legend.

Johnson may have given mystery fiction its best MacGuffin since The Maltese Falcon. The painting itself holds a fascinating history that engages both Walt and the reader, his deputy and lover, Vic, not so much. It also has him donning a tux to go undercover at an art auction with comic results. Also, much like The Maltese Falcon, Johnson makes one of the mysteries concern its actual existence.

It also serves as a touchstone for many of the book’s themes. One is the “Print The Legend” controversy often associated with the west. The painting itself holds many inaccuracies, including Custer wearing his hair long and the attacking tribes having shields that were more appropriately carried by Zulu warriors in Africa. One of the funnier chapters has Walt struggling to explain what he was taught about the battle to Vic while his Cheyenne buddy Henry Standing constantly lobs history from the Native American point of view all while the highly inaccurate Custer Of The West plays on the TV above the bar.

He also uses painting and plot to examine the ghosts combatants carry when the war is over. Craig ties this to what Walt is dealing with from the events that occurred in Depth Of Winter that has brought out his darker side of him, partly created by his Vietnam experience. A wonderful moment that ties these themes together occurs during a chess game with Walt and his predecessor Lucian, a World War Two vet, as they discuss how the many famous battles are lost ones.

The book ends poignantly, in a sentence he sets up for in the beginning and alludes to at certain points without drawing attention. Between these chapters is an entertaining yarn of art, history, old soldiers, and the battles they continue to fight. Ironically, his craft has created a finer piece of art than the historic painting he writes about.

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Joe R. Lansdale’s latest, More Better Deals, takes a few cues from one of his influences—James M. Cain—who gave us one of the great templates of noir with his books The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. This time the male is Ed Edwards, a used car salesman in early sixties East Texas, carrying a family secret. When he goes to repossess a Cadillac, he soon finds himself in the arms of purchaser’s wife, Nancy Craig. She would like to see her husband gone and Ed would like to have her, and the husband’s businesses as well, as part of some insurance money to help his sister. Yes, the set up is familiar, but Lansdale uses it to create a novel wild, funny, and completely his own.

Joe was kind enough to take some questions about the book, Cain, and the effect of where he lives on his writing.

Scott Montgomery: More Better Deals is an homage to one of your favorite writers James M Cain. You once described him as a “clean writer.” What does that mean to you?

Joe R. Lansdale: His prose is uncluttered. He doesn’t even tell you who’s talking, and you always know. He writes tight, little stories without adornment, but his prose is still fast paced and muscular and understandable.

SM: While I see the classic Cain plot setup, the voice, characters, and theme are all yours. How do you try to use your influences in your work?

JRL: Well, this is a more obvious one than usual. I have wanted to play with the Cain structure—at least the one he developed for his two signature books in my view, Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice—then undercurrent it with social commentary without it being too overwhelming, and I wanted to give it my voice and more humor, though it is certainly dark humor.

SM: The setting puts a fine spin on the template. What about East Texas makes it skew a story in a different way?

JRL: It’s my background, and East Texas to me is far more interesting than Los Angeles because it can be deceptive. It’s wooded and lots of water and hospitality, but underneath that hospitality is a razor’s edge and a turd in the punch bowl. Not everyone, of course. Like anywhere, East Texas is a mix of good and bad, but I’m writing crime novels, so the bad are more prominent, but I think there’s a kind of squirming difference here, a mild gothic undertone due to Southern roots, and it not being like the myth of Texas. No deserts, no mountains in this corner of the state. Woods and water and smiling racism, and the old days police work with a black jack and a phone book.

SM: Ed carries a secret that takes this out of the normal Cain template. Were you aware of that going into the story or did it develop as it went along?

JRL : I knew it going in. I don’t know that I thought about it consciously, but I knew.

S.M. : How did you approach Nancy so she wouldn’t be the standard femme fatale?

JRL: I based her on people I knew, who I’m sure didn’t commit murder, but who had inclinations for something better but were living in a time when a female brain surgeon, or any kind of job of that ilk was generally out of the reach of ambitious and smart women. I thought of Nancy as being the kind of woman that had she had a different upbringing and a chance at greater education might well have been more successful, even in those times. I envisioned her as having a burning hunger for what she didn’t get to do, and that, along with her background, gave her a less savory viewpoint.

SM: You also released a very funny road trip book. Jane Goes North. What inspired that story?

JRL: I’m not sure what inspired that. I have written about road trips before and I enjoy books and films about road trips, and it developed out of that. To very different characters traveling across country for very different reasons, not really wanting to be together, but being forced together. They were also the type that were so constantly disappointed that even the most absurd event that occurred they were not truly surprised or shocked. I wanted to write a kind of insane fable. I think they were both good people who had made bad choices and couldn’t get out of what I’ve seen so many people fall into. The repeat of past mistakes with the mythology that next time it’ll work out, when of course repeating mistakes rarely leads to a different outcome. The road trip was their break with those mistakes and a kind of revelation for them. I had so much fun with that book and consider it one of my best.

More Better Deals is available at BookPeople in-store and online now.