I just discovered "Mystery Writer" Craig Johnson.
Now, let me explain why I put "Mystery Writer" in quotes.
One of his books has an interview, and he talks about loving the mystery genre especially the old puply stuff, but that's been done to death. His deal was he wanted to create a cast of such interesting characters that when you got to the end you didn't care who the murderer was, you were more hung up on how the successes and failures, trials and tribulations, affected the characters.
I'll use a TV analogy. At one time ER and House and a few other TV doctor shows were about 'disease of the week' where you could tune in, never see the show before, not know any charaters and still follow the plot. A lot of TV cop shows were this way to "crime of the week" A lot of these shows later on, like ER and NYPD Blue, the show became a lot more about the characters interacting and lives developing/unravelling. Now, I never liked that angle in TV simply because you basically had to watch the whole season to really understand an episode.
Of course, that isn't a problem in books...unless you read the ending last!
Anyways, basic rundown. Wyoming rural county sherrif. The guy was a Marine in Vietnam, and is fairly old now. He is best friends with an Indian named Standing Bear, but if anything they claim a reverse Tonto type relation.
The first novel is "The Cold Dish" and discovering what kind of gun was used in the murder, and later used by the sherrif plays a bit of the mystery (but we would be able to figure it out from one of two cover variants) so I'll jump right to book 2 and 3 with some of the gunny talk. Note, the sherrif isn't a gunny himself, he sees them totally as tools, but he does carry a 1911A1 cocked and locked.
"My father had trained me; he was a precise and persistant shooting instructor who started teaching me when I was five. Most people are self taught; they don't shoot enough to aquire skill or even become used to handling guns. They stand wrong, hold their heads wrong, and even close one eye when they sight, thus cutting down their vision and handicapping themselves in their ability to judge distance"
"The Ithaca Mag-10 Roadblocker was introduced a few decades back as a tactical 10 gauge designed to stop cars; hence the name Roadblocker. It was expensive, heavy, and carried only 3 rounds, the idea being that thee two-ounce helpings of lead served at just over the sound barrier were enough. However, it had problems that could only be corrected with a longer forcing tube; without the modification, it had a propensity to jam.
And it did."
Now, let me explain why I put "Mystery Writer" in quotes.
One of his books has an interview, and he talks about loving the mystery genre especially the old puply stuff, but that's been done to death. His deal was he wanted to create a cast of such interesting characters that when you got to the end you didn't care who the murderer was, you were more hung up on how the successes and failures, trials and tribulations, affected the characters.
I'll use a TV analogy. At one time ER and House and a few other TV doctor shows were about 'disease of the week' where you could tune in, never see the show before, not know any charaters and still follow the plot. A lot of TV cop shows were this way to "crime of the week" A lot of these shows later on, like ER and NYPD Blue, the show became a lot more about the characters interacting and lives developing/unravelling. Now, I never liked that angle in TV simply because you basically had to watch the whole season to really understand an episode.
Of course, that isn't a problem in books...unless you read the ending last!
Anyways, basic rundown. Wyoming rural county sherrif. The guy was a Marine in Vietnam, and is fairly old now. He is best friends with an Indian named Standing Bear, but if anything they claim a reverse Tonto type relation.
The first novel is "The Cold Dish" and discovering what kind of gun was used in the murder, and later used by the sherrif plays a bit of the mystery (but we would be able to figure it out from one of two cover variants) so I'll jump right to book 2 and 3 with some of the gunny talk. Note, the sherrif isn't a gunny himself, he sees them totally as tools, but he does carry a 1911A1 cocked and locked.
"My father had trained me; he was a precise and persistant shooting instructor who started teaching me when I was five. Most people are self taught; they don't shoot enough to aquire skill or even become used to handling guns. They stand wrong, hold their heads wrong, and even close one eye when they sight, thus cutting down their vision and handicapping themselves in their ability to judge distance"
"The Ithaca Mag-10 Roadblocker was introduced a few decades back as a tactical 10 gauge designed to stop cars; hence the name Roadblocker. It was expensive, heavy, and carried only 3 rounds, the idea being that thee two-ounce helpings of lead served at just over the sound barrier were enough. However, it had problems that could only be corrected with a longer forcing tube; without the modification, it had a propensity to jam.
And it did."
