"Waiting on" Wednesday (4) - Hell is Empty

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. Each week bloggers highlight books that they are eagerly anticipating. My choice for this week is:

Hell is Empty

by Craig Johnson

Publisher: Viking Adult

Available on June 2nd

7th in the Walt Longmire series

Wyoming's favorite sheriff braves a frozen inferno as he races to capture an escaped murderer.

Well-read and world-weary, Sheriff Walt Longmire has been maintaining order in Wyoming's Absaroka County for more than thirty years, but in this riveting seventh outing, he is pushed to his limits. Raynaud Shade, an adopted Crow Indian, has just confessed to murdering a boy ten years ago and burying him deep within the Big Horn Mountains. After transporting Shade and a group of other convicted murderers through a snowstorm, Walt is informed by the FBI that the body is buried in his jurisdiction-and the victim's name is White Buffalo. Guided only by Indian mysticism and a battered paperback of Dante's Inferno, Walt pursues Shade and his fellow escapees into the icy hell of the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area, cheating death to ensure that justice-both civil and spiritual-is served.

I am always excited about a new book by Craig Johnson.  This mystery series is one of the best I've read, depicting the Wyoming setting in a fascinating way.  The characters are wonderful and I defy you to not be impressed if you pick up The Cold Dish, first book in the series.  We discussed it in my mystery group a couple of years ago and, though some members were afraid it would be a "western", they were very pleased to find an absorbing mystery, set in the Western US, that had some real issues to sink their teeth into.  Craig Johnson has shared that A&E is filming a TV pilot, entitled Longmire, based on his books.  Several well known actors are starring.  Go to Craig's website, click on Post Its, and read the April 2011 entry.  Fabulous!!