Monday Mystery Backlist - THE COLD DISH

Today's backlist title is Craig Johnson's THE COLD DISH. Since his fifth book in the Walt Longmire series is officially releasing this Thursday, I thought it fitting that we remember the beginning!

Walt Longmire is the sheriff in Absaroka County, Wyoming. Life doesn't tend to veer much from the ordinary in rural Wyoming, so when Cody Pritchard is found dead everyone's inclined to write it off as a hunting accident. But when subsequent events start to make it look as though Cody's death may actually be a revenge murder - for Cody's part in the gang rape of Melissa Little Bird, a Cheyenne girl with fetal alcohol syndrome - Absaroke County is turned on its head.

While trying to sort out the death of Pritchard, Walt is also trying to sort out his own personal life. He's sunk into a bit of a depression after the death of his wife, and all of his friends are trying to dig him out of the depression.

THE COLD DISH introduces the world to the cast of Absaroka County, including Walt Longmire, his deputy Vic Moretti, Walt's best friend Henry Standing Bear, the former sheriff of Absaroka Lucian Connelly, and yes, it is so...Lonnie Little Bird.

THE COLD DISH was published in 2005 by Viking/the Penguin Group. It was also released by Penguin in trade paper in 2006.