Reading Recommendations: Kindness Goes Unpunished, a Walt Longmire Mystery, Craig Johnson

Walt Longmire has been Sheriff of Wyoming's Absaroka County for almost a quarter of a century, but when he joins his good friend Henry Standing Bear on a trip to the City of Brotherly Love to see his daughter, Cady, he's in a shock. Walt hasn't even put his boots up when Cady is viciously attacked and left near death on the steps of the Franklin Institute. He soon discovers that she has unwittingly become involved in a deadly political cover up. Backed by Henry, Dog, Deputy Victoria Moretti, and the entire Moretti posse of Philadelphia police officers, Walt unpacks his saddle bag of tricks to mete out some western style justice.

And, Winchester Warriors, Texas Rangers of Company D, 1879-1901, Bob Alexander

The Texas Rangers were institutionally birthed in 1874 with the formation of the Frontier Battalion. In an effort to put a human face on the Rangers, Bob Alexander tells the story of one of the six companies of the Frontier Battalion, Company D. Readers follow the Rangers of Company D as, over time, it transforms from a unit of adventurous boys into a reasonably well-oiled law enforcement machine staffed by career-oriented lawmen. After their start as Indian fighters, the Rangers rounded up numerous Texas outlaws and cattle thieves, engaged in border skirmishes along the Rio Grande, and participated in notable episodes such as the fence cutter wars.

"Winchester Warriors is exciting reading. It is also accurate and provides a great model for future writers of Ranger history."

Texas Ranger Dispatch

And, Eight Girls Taking Pictures, a novel, Whitney Otto

This captivating novel opens in 1917 as Cymbeline Kelley surveys the charred remains of her photography studio, destroyed in a fire started by a woman hired to help take care of the house while Cymbaline pursued her photography career. This tension between wanting and needing to be two places at once; between domestic duty and ambition; between public and private life; between what's seen and what's hidden from view, echoes in the stories of the other seven women in the book. Among them: Amadora Allenburg, who creates a world of color and whimsey in an attempt to recapture the joy lost to WWI; Clara Argento, who finds her voice working alongside socialist revolutionaries in Mexico; Lenny Van Pelt, a gorgeous model who feels more comfortable photographing the desert towns of the French countryside after WWII than she does at a couture fashion shoot; and Miri Marx, who has traveled the world taking pictures, but also loves her quiet life as a wife and mother in her New York apartment. Criss-crossing the world and a century, Eight Girls Taking Pictures is an affecting meditation on the conflicts women face and the choices they make. These memorable characters seek extraordinary lives through their work, yet they also find meaning and reward in the ordinary tasks of motherhood, marriage, and domesticity. Most of all, this novel is a vivid portrait of women in love, in love with men, other women, children, their careers, beauty and freedom.

See you at Rylander!