Craig Johnson
Spirit of Steamboat is an odd little book, in that it was supposed to be a short story, but within four days had spread its wingspan to over eighty pages. After a brief conference with [my publishers], we decided to bring it out as a hardback novella, not exactly a novel. [It's] about half the length of one of my Walt Longmire mystery books. As usual with my shorter pieces, it's not a mystery per se, but rather an adventure/thriller with mysterious elements; sometimes it's not so much about the suspense of killing characters off in a book, but rather, of trying to keep them alive.
This was next in the chronology of Longmire books I've got on my to-be-borrowed list with the library and the author's description (above) is apt. It's full of narrow scrapes and really should be adapted into a screenplay. I also enjoyed how it explained the origin of the image on Wyoming's license plates, which holds the record for the longest-running license plate graphic in the U.S.
First line: It was Tuesday, the day before Christmas, and I wasn't expecting visitors.
Page 56, 5th line: Allen True captured the spirit of the animal for the princely sum of seventy-five dollars when Secretary of State Lester C. Hunt commissioned him to depict the horse and rider as the design for the 1936 Wyoming license plate.
Last line: Slowly she opened it for my inspection, and there lay the tarnished beaded and belled trinket that had hung in the canopy of the B-25: Steamboat.
No comments:
Post a Comment