Kindness Goes Unpunished

A Walt Longmire Mystery

By: Craig Johnson

Narrated by: George Guidall

Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire mysteries are critically acclaimed. Longmire's third outing takes him from Wyoming to Philadelphia to investigate a brutal assault on his daughter, Cady. Walt believes her ex-boyfriend is behind the crime and searches him out. But when he turns up dead, Walt is back to square one.

Listen to all of Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire mysteries.

©2007 Craig Johnson (P)2007 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"The quick pace and tangled web of interconnected crimes will keep readers turning pages." ( Publishers Weekly)

Kindness is great

The narrator is fantastic. The Native American story made it seem that this could be real. A spiritual journey for all of us.

So Good

Looked forward to each nights reading. Loved the pace of the narrator. The romance didn't quite fit.

Hooked!

Love listening to this series. I am hooked! George G brings the series to life and I am here to listen and visualize!

Great Story

Yet another great Longmire story. Can’t wait to see what happens in the next book.

Another Good Story

This was different from the first two, as this takes place in Pennsylvania. Most of the same characters, and new ones . Vick's family Keeps me interested !
Starting #4 in the series and purchased the Christmas in Abskroka it's available in Kindle form .
with the heat wave of Southern California, I think I will read it soon! Mr John son has a wonderful gift of description.
thank you

…different neighborhood, same Walt

Relentless, measured and effective pursuit of what is truly right told in a multifaceted well-layered story with plenty of philosophical and mystical intrinsic truths that reveal the best traits of our shared humanity.

Excellent

Each book gets better and better! This one had some steam , boohoo. Can't wait to get the next.

Serious story with some humorous moments...

I chuckled out loud a couple times in the first few pages. That is an excellent omen.

Have to say though, I really dislike dream-sequence scenes. Dreams don't mean anything in real life, why would they mean anything in fiction? Fortunately there were only a couple of these.

The plot is a bit convoluted, but ultimately Johnson does explain it all out, so you are not left trying to figure out how A led to B. Since I don't try to figure out plots before they unfold, I am glad that it was all summarized for me.

I did read the earlier books in the series, but that was awhile ago so I forget the age difference between Walt and Vic...I think it is significant, and, as such, there is a thread of un-believability in this book. But anyway.

My only real complaint is actually the number of characters. I am okay with the regulars (we already met them in earlier books) but there are a couple different bad guys, and some other characters that play a role, and it was actually a little difficult to keep them all straight. 

The narration is excellent. There is no gore or graphic sex or violence and I think there is only occasional swearing. I bought the rest in the series on Audible.

A Great Read

Walt Longmire comes to life, and you'll want to invite him over for supper in Craig Johnson's great mysteries set in the Wyoming. Readers will be refreshed by the accurate descriptions of the daily life and atmosphere of the small town surrounding. I encourage those who enjoy Hillerman to read The Cold Dish.

A fine book with way too much exposition.

I am reading this at the point at which I have already read almost the entire series. I loved all of the things that one loves about Walt and Henry and Vic, etc. However, the move from Wyoming to Philadelphia is of major consequence. The Wyoming locations are central to both Mr. Johnson's books and also to the C. J. Box series about Joe Pickett. Both are terrific reads, but the locations are important, largely because they are so unfamiliar to those of us who live elsewhere and are captivated by the magnificent descriptions of the Bighorn Mountains, the extraordinary winters, the amazing topography and so forth. Philadelphia suffers by comparison to Wyoming, IMHO. The severe injury to Cady is an important motivating part of the plot for Walt and Henry. She is so deeply loved by pretty much all the main Wyoming characters that our sympathy is automatically with her. Also, and I think this part is absolutely central, Cady's injury allows us to see and feel how extraordinarily loving and gentle Walt and Henry both are. They play the tough, silent guy when in Absaroka County, but in Philly they are portrayed as deeply emotional men. I just loved this part of the book. It also allows George to express the emotionality of both men in expansive, dramatic ways: you expect one or the other to say I love you all the way through the book. You know that the love exists, so whether they use the words or not is unimportant.
I had some trouble with the last hour or two of the book. Mr. Johnson tries very hard to lay out all the terribly confusing plots and subplots among the large assortment of bad guys, and maybe good maybe bad guys, and he has to throw in some extremely large expanses of expository prose that I had a hard time digesting. So many characters! So many interwoven, complicated relationships! With whom is Lina, Vic's mom, having sex? Why is Vic's Dad, also Vic, such an immediately hateful person? Who is helping Walt and who is trying to hurt him, and how on earth does anyone keep them straight? I have too many questions.
So, if you are going to skip one book in the series, this might be it. If you can look past the problems that I have with it, and you may well have problems with it that I don't, then fire it right up. All of us Walt lovers are basically unconditional lovers, deeply forgiving souls, who love Walt in spite of all the crazily cowboy, lone ranger stuff that he continually does. Hasn't he ever heard of backup? Even with Henry almost doing it without being asked? You can certainly feel my ambivalence about this book. I am sure that you will decide for yourself, for heaven's sake.