Open season(A Joe Pickett Novel #1)
C. J. Box
Like Walt Longmire, Joe Pickett is a rural lawman in a remote western landscape, and Box shows the same respect for hard working people and the wild country around them.
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Find Similar BooksThe Cold Dish
Fiction
★★★★★4.5 (4)
Johnson's first Walt Longmire mystery pairs a lean, sharply observed Wyoming setting with a sheriff whose dry humor and stubborn decency make a slow-burning revenge story worth the time.
What It's About
The Cold Dish, published in 2004, is the first novel in Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series, set in the fictional Absaroka County in north-central Wyoming, on the high plains near a Northern Cheyenne reservation. The story opens with a death that looks like the work of someone with a long-simmering grudge. Longmire is a veteran sheriff who had hoped to coast through his last stretch in office, and now he has to work out who had a reason to act, who had the means, and how the community's old wounds connect to the crime in front of him.
Johnson writes in a plain, unshowy style with a lot of attention to landscape, weather, and the routines of small-town police work. Longmire narrates in the first person with a dry, self-deprecating voice, and much of the humor comes from the way he sees himself and the people around him. The mystery moves steadily rather than flashily. Clues arrive through conversations, legwork, and careful reading of people, not through elaborate puzzles or action set pieces, so the investigation feels like something a real county officer would actually do.
The experience is closer to spending time with a companion than to reading a fast thriller. The book cares about grief, loyalty, and what justice means in a place where the law, the tribal community, and personal friendships all pull in different directions. Readers who want rapid pacing may find stretches of it slow, but the characters carry the book, and its emotional weight builds quietly until the final chapters.
Read this if you…
- enjoy character-driven mysteries where the detective's personal life matters as much as the crime
- want a regional crime novel with a strong sense of place and a rural Western setting
- like dry humor and conversational narration in the vein of classic small-town detective fiction
Skip it if you…
- need a fast-moving thriller with frequent twists, cliffhangers, or action scenes
- expect a tightly plotted puzzle where every clue is fairly placed and neatly resolved
Key Ideas
- 1
Revenge tested against the idea of justice
The central question is whether a community's failure to punish a serious crime gives anyone the right to take matters into their own hands. Johnson keeps the moral stakes concrete, showing how a legal outcome that feels unfair to many people can make private vengeance seem understandable, even to the person trying to stop it.
- 2
A sheriff who knows everyone
Longmire's strength is less forensic than social. He has spent decades in one county, so he knows families, histories, and who is likely to lie. The book treats this kind of local knowledge as real police work, and it shows how hard it is to be both the person who enforces the rules and someone whose neighbors expect favors.
- 3
Friendship across cultural lines
Longmire's long friendship with Henry Standing Bear gives the book its emotional center. Their conversations show two men who respect each other while being honest about what they do and do not understand about each other's world. The relationship is handled with warmth and some tension, and it shapes how the investigation unfolds.
- 4
Landscape as a presence in the story
The high plains are never just a backdrop. Johnson uses their emptiness and isolation to shape mood, pacing, and character. Distances matter in this country, and so does the way people endure long winters and lonely stretches of road. Readers who enjoy place-driven fiction will find this one of its strongest qualities.
- 5
Humor as a way of carrying grief
The book is serious about violence and loss, but it is also funny, often through the eccentric townspeople and Longmire's wry commentary on his own life. This mix keeps the tone from sliding into bleakness and reflects how people in small communities often cope with hard events, through jokes, routines, and stubborn loyalty.
Limitations
As a first novel, the book shows its age in places: the prose is occasionally looser than in later entries in the series, and some side characters are sketched more than developed. The plot follows familiar patterns of the rural mystery. Some readers have also questioned how a non-Native author writes Cheyenne characters and their community, and the book's portrayal of tribal life is worth reading with that in mind. Its handling of sexual violence is serious but can feel heavy for some readers.
Questions Readers Ask
- Do I need to read the Walt Longmire series in order?
- You don't have to, since The Cold Dish introduces the characters and setting from scratch. However, the series builds on relationships and history across books, so reading in publication order will make later emotional payoffs land more fully. Starting here is the natural choice for most readers.
- How does it compare to Craig Johnson's later novels?
- The Cold Dish is more restrained and grounded than some later entries, which lean more into humor and larger ensemble casts. Fans who like the lived-in feel of the early books often prefer it, while readers who want a wider, more varied series may find the later books more energetic.
- Is this a good pick for readers who like Walt Longmire the TV show?
- Yes, if you want the source material. The television adaptation takes many liberties with characters and plots, so the novel offers a quieter, more personal version of Longmire. Readers who know the show will notice differences, but the core relationships and the setting are recognizable.
What Creators Say About The Cold Dish
Reviews from readers on YouTube. Their opinions are their own.
- Published
- 2004
- ISBN
- 9781101043943
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Category
- Fiction
Book details and cover from Google Books.
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