Next to Last Stand

June 8, 2020
A real-life painting, Cassilly Adams’s Custer’s Last Fight, which was reproduced in the millions in the late 19th century and destroyed in a fire at Fort Bliss, Tex., in 1946, provides the backdrop for bestseller Johnson’s intriguing 16th novel featuring Absaroka County, Wyo., sheriff Walt Longmire (after 2019’s Land of Wolves). When Charley Lee Stillwater, a friend of Walt’s, dies of a heart attack at the Veterans’ Home of Wyoming, $1 million in cash and what appears to be an artist’s study for a portion of the Custer painting turn up in the retired army veteran’s room. Walt sets out to authenticate the partial painting—and to determine the source of the cash. The stakes rise when someone steals the artwork after knocking out the museum curator who was about to examine it. More than one murder follows. At the exciting climax, Walt coolly estimates the number of stitches in his scalp he’s going to need after being shot by the surprising culprit he’s closing in on. Vietnam War vet Walt shows few signs of age in this consistently entertaining series. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary.

July 15, 2020
Sheriff Walt Longmire investigates a murder associated with a long-lost painting. When Charley Lee Stillwater, a resident of the Veterans' Home of Wyoming, dies and a shoe box containing $1 million is found among his otherwise modest possessions, Sheriff Longmire, who had known Stillwater for years, is called in. Preliminary questioning of Lee's cronies in the home reveals that he had had shadowy meetings with people who might have an interest in art, and a fragment of a painted canvas among his things reinforces the notion that Lee has somehow been dealing in art. With the help of his Northern Cheyenne friend Henry Standing Bear, Longmire has the fragment analyzed, and he eventually establishes that it is part of a study for Custer's Last Fight by Cassilly Adams, a mural-size painting that was for years an iconic image of the Battle of the Greasy Grass but which was destroyed in a fire in 1946. Traveling with Standing Bear and pursuing, as it were, the ghosts of Custer and Sitting Bull, Longmire explores the complex of invention and fact that looms so large in the American consciousness. The value of the painting, in fact, derives not from its quality as art but from its participation in the creation of the Custer myth. This is good stuff, if a little discursive, and helps redress a historical imbalance. However, the measured tone and leisurely exploration give way to accelerating action and a somewhat fragmented plot. Some characters believe the painting still exists, and one, Count von Lehman, a slightly absurd caricature of art dealers, believes he paid a substantial amount to acquire it. Then von Lehman disappears, apparently murdered, and the niceties of civilized competition drop away. All's revealed in the end, of course. Some of the characters are richly drawn and, in the case of Standing Bear, warmly familiar, and the antics of Lee's Veterans' Home cronies are a sweet tribute to America's better angels, but the villains are disappointing, and while it's more a caper than a gritty tale, mortal crimes are committed, lives are changed or curtailed, and the plotting seems somehow less than the sum of its parts. Not Johnson's best work but a pleasant composition demonstrating deft brushwork.

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Starred review from August 1, 2020

When Charley Lee Stillwater, a veteran of two wars, dies at the Veterans' Home of Wyoming, his remaining possessions stir up trouble for Sheriff Walt Longmire. Charley's room is packed with paintings, art books, and a shoebox with a million dollars in cash; it appears he died after winning at bingo, but Walt is waiting for test results. He's as intrigued about an old strange canvas found in Charley's room as he is about the cash. It seems to be a painting of the Battle of Little Bighorn, what Native Americans call "The Battle of the Greasy Grass." Before it can be authenticated, the canvas is stolen. Walt's investigation of art and money soon turns into a murder case as, one by one, his suspects disappear or die. VERDICT After Depth of Winter and Land of Wolves, Johnson lightens the atmosphere in this complex, thought-provoking mystery that highlights art and Western history, emphasizing the contrast between Native accounts and white history. The author's poetic turns of phrase, witty dialog, and one of the funniest, most memorable chase scenes in a novel combine to make this a winner.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2020
Here's the latest in Johnson's immensely popular crime novels set in the modern West. As with the earlier efforts and the television series (Longmire) they inspired, the real pleasure is the companionship of Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire and his salty pals. The starter here is real: Cassilly Adams' 1884-85 painting Custer's Last Fight. It was destroyed in a fire in 1946, but Johnson spins a different possibility: the painting survived, its owner murdered, and the painting, worth millions, stolen. Longmire must straighten all this out, and he takes his time. The first half of the novel is an amiable ramble as the principals discourse on Wyoming history, General Custer, Michelangelo's Libyan Sybil and Dickens' Bleak House. It's pedal to the metal in the second half as the murderous art fraudsters behind it all are revealed, and the action culminates in a riotous chase involving "a motorized motorcade" of ramped-up wheelchairs. One of them, its owner brags, is "good for twenty-five miles an hour." Johnson knows it's Walt his readers crave, and he delivers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)