The Western Star

by Craig Johnson
295 pgs  (Longmire series #13)

The Western Star is the 13th book in Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series and I'm excited by the fact that it's one of my favorites so far. It tells two distinct, but interconnected stories, both of which involve the most ruthless killer Walt ever went up against.

The first story took place back in 1972, when Walt was a brand-new deputy with the Absaroka County Sheriff's department. He was accompanying Sheriff Lucian Connelly and 23 other Wyoming sheriffs on the Western Star, a sheriff's train that ran from Cheyenne to Evanston, when one of the sheriffs is killed. Walt, who is the newest and least experienced lawman on the train, is the one who identifies the killer and it's this investigation that solidifies his decision to become a Wyoming lawman.

The second story takes place in current times and involves the same killer from the Western Star. Every four years, Walt travels to Cheyenne to complete his weapons recertification and he plans that trip to coincide with the scheduled four-year parole hearings for the Western Star killer. Walt has made it a point over the years to attend each of the parole hearings in order to ensure parole is never granted. This year, armed with a diagnosis of less than a year to live, the man who has spent nearly the last 50 years behind bars, is trying to get a compassionate release, so he can live out what little time he has left outside of a jail cell.

As the story jumps back and forth between the two time frames, Johnson does a fantastic job of building towards the book's conclusion. And while this one ends on a bit of a cliff hanger, it's still a very satisfying conclusion. Fans of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express should enjoy the book that much more, as it's clearly an homage to it, and a worthy one at that.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

An Obvious Fact

by Craig Johnson
317 pgs  (Longmire series #12)

Chief William Nutter is the police chief of Hulett, Wyoming, a small town with about 400 residents that once a year is overrun by 50,000 bikers, who come to town for a motorcycle rally. hen alt Longmire arrives in town to support his friend Henry Standing Bear, who has come to try to win a race he won several years ago, Nutter immediately calls on him to help with an investigation.

Bodaway Torres, a young member of a biker gang, lies in critical condition in the hospital, and it appears as though someone ran him off the road. His mother, Lola Wojciechowski, is an old "biker chick," who has a history with Henry. In fact, she's the woman he named his car after. Both men are reluctant to get involved, until Lola hints at the possibility that Bodaway could be Henry's son.

Walt's investigation leads him to Bob Nance, a wealthy businessman in town, whose daughter has both romantic and criminal ties to Bodaway, and to Brady Post, an undercover ATF agent currently riding with the motorcycle club. Things quickly escalate into chaos, but fortunately, for both Walt and the reader, Walt's undersheriff Victoria Moretti arrives in town to further agitate the situation.

An Obvious Fact is another solid book in Craig Johnson's increasingly entertaining mystery series. I don't know of another author who is as consistent in the quality of the books he puts out, especially not at the frequency he does. I'm often asked for reading recommendations by people who know how much I enjoy reading, and I've recommended Johnson's Longmire books numerous times. Of those who have taken my advice and tried one, I have yet to hear back that they were disappointed. Something I can't say about my other recommendations.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Dry Bones

by Craig Johnson
306 pgs  (Longmire series #11)

Dry Bones, the 11th installment in Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series, begins with the discovery of the largest, and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever found. Jen, as she's soon named, is discovered in Absaroka County, Wyoming, on the ranch of Danny Lone Elk, an elderly Cheyenne cattle rancher, and she's estimated to be worth around $8 million.

Soon after the discovery of Jen, Danny Loan Elk's body is discovered floating face down in a turtle pond on his ranch, and it's up to Walt to figure out who needed him dead. But with Danny's family, the Cheyenne tribe, and the federal government all claiming rights to Jen, it's not going to be easy.

Dry Bones is just another example of whey Craig Johnson's series is so good, and why it seems to be growing in popularity with each book that comes out. Even with the ending of the Netflix series based on it a few years ago, it seems like I come across fans of the books more often now than ever before.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Wait for Signs

by Craig Johnson

183 pgs  (Longmire Series)

Every Christmas Eve, Craig Johnson writes a short story featuring Walt Longmire that he gives away for free as a Christmas gift for his readers. Wait for Signs is a collection of those stories so far.

Some of the stories are minor mysteries, just on a smaller scale than the ones Walt tackles in the full-length novels, and some of them simply offer short scenes from his past, that provide a little more of the background of his life and relationship with his deceased wife. Either way, they're fun and enjoyable, and worth reading for anyone who watched the series, or reads the books.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Any Other Name

by Craig Johnson
317 pgs  (Longmire series #10)

In the tenth book in his Longmire series, Craig Johnson has Walt, Vic, Lucien, and Henry investigating the death of a detective in nearby Campbell County. The detective, a former associate of Lucien, shot himself in the head, an obvious suicide. But when Walt starts looking into the death, he quickly learns that something is wrong. The detective had been investigating the disappearances of several young women, but what tips Walt off that things are not right is the fact that the detective shot himself twice. The first bullet went through his cheeks, the second, into his brain. It appears to Walt that the detective wanted to punish himself before he ended his life, and Walt wants to find out why.

Some authors are good at writing character-driven stories. Others write plot-driven ones well. There aren’t many who can do both simultaneously as well as Craig Johnson.

Walt is one of the best characters you’ll come across. He’s not a flawed anti-hero so common in mystery and crime fiction stories today. He’s not a recovering alcoholic or even a violin-playing, cocaine-snorting detective (although it’s clear he was inspired by one). Instead he’s an old-school hero, the type that used to be so common, but then fell out of fashion. Which makes him a rarity today and even easier to like.

But Walt’s not the only character that continually drives the series. Each of the supporting characters, although they’re not center stage as often as Walt is, are multi-dimensional and could easily be the main character in a series of their own.

Fortunately, Johnson takes his cast of characters, and in each book, involves them in a story that’s smart, at times funny, and always compelling and rewarding. 

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Spirit of Steamboat

by Craig Johnson
146 pgs  (A Longmire story)

Spirit of Steamboat is a slight departure from Craig Johnson’s usual Walt Longmire story. This one is a novella, and instead of the usual mystery Johnson sets Sheriff Longmire out to solve, this time around it’s an adventure story from Longmire’s past he tells.

The story begins on Christmas Eve. A young woman shows up at Longmire’s office asking unusual questions about Lucian Conalley, Longmire’s predecessor as sheriff. Longmire takes the woman to the nursing home Lucian now resides at, but neither he nor Lucian has any idea who the woman is. It’s not until she says the word “Steamboat” that both men know instantly who she is, and they’re both transported back to an earlier Christmas Eve. This one in 1988, shortly after Walt became sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming.

A young girl had been seriously burned in a car accident and the medical helicopter that picked her up at the scene had had to make an emergency landing in Longmire’s jurisdiction because of a storm. The girl was going to die if she didn’t get medical treatment beyond what they were capable of giving her in the small Wyoming hospital and she needed to be transported to Denver. But the storm that had forced the helicopter to land was also preventing any airplanes from making the trip.

There was only one plane around that Longmire knew could make the trip, Steamboat, an old World War II bomber that hadn’t flown for decades. Fortunately, Walt also knew someone who had flown a plane very similar to Steamboat in the war and thought he could probably convince him to make the dangerous trip.

Spirit of Steamboat is a great story. It’s easily read in one or two sittings and Johnson keeps the action moving the whole time. But it’s not just an adventure story. Johnson seemed to pack more emotions and feelings into this one than he has in any of the rest of his books.

In hindsight, I wish I would have waited till December to read this one. It’s a great story with a message worthy of that time of the year.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

A Serpent's Tooth

by Craig Johnson
335 pgs  (Longmire series #9)

Cord Lynear is a teenage boy who was cast out of a fundamentalist Mormon group in South Dakota, and who shows up in Absaroka County, Wyoming. He ends up in Sheriff Walt Longmire's jail, which spurs Longmire into searching for the boy's mother. When he learns that the she was cast out from the group as well, and has gone missing, he begins investigating the polygamous group and their leader--Roy Lynear.

Lynear and his group live on a large, heavily-fortified ranch, and as Longmire quickly notices, more is going on there than simply a polygamous group trying to live their lives according to their beliefs. Longmire believes Lynear is hiding behind his religion, and that he's involved in criminal activities. Even though Lynear and his group are outside Longmire's jurisdiction, he can't ignore his intuition and embarks on a case that will put his, and everyone's close to his life, in danger.

This is the ninth "Longmire" book, and while it's not one of the best in the series, it's still an enjoyable read. It has all the elements of the series that keep me coming back to it. It's got an interesting plot, I enjoy the characters, and Johnson injects just the right amount of humor to keep things light, even when things are going horribly awry for Walt and his deputies. Especially enjoyable in this one is the man who shows up to find and protect Cord. He goes by the name Orrin Porter Rockwell, and he believes he's the same man who served as Joseph Smith's body guard back in the 1840s.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Hell is Empty

by Craig Johnson
309 pgs  (Longmire series #7)

Craig Johnson borrowed from both Shakespeare and Dante for his seventh book featuring Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire. The book's title comes from the famous line in The Tempest: "Hell is empty and all the devils are here." It's a fantastic line, and a very appropriate title for Johnson's story.

The story itself was heavily influenced by Dante's Inferno. In the poem, Dante is guided by the poet Virgil through the nine circles of hell. In Johnson's story, Longmire is guided by the giant Indian Virgil White Buffalo as he travels through his own various levels of hell.

It's early spring and Walt is assisting with a prisoner transport. Raynoud Shade is a Canadian Indian convicted of killing a young boy who is on his way to prison for the rest of his life. Shade is also a psychotic schizophrenic who sees visions and hears voices.

While traveling through the Bighorn Mountains, a fierce storm arrives and Shade manages to escape. Now it's up to Walt to track him down before Shade decides to kill again. But Walt's primary concern quickly becomes his own survival, as the mountains and the storm threaten to take his life, or at a minimum, his sanity.

I've heard Craig Johnson speak in person a couple of times over the past few years and it's very apparent that regardless of the fact that he lives in rural Wyoming, in a town with a population in the double digits, that he's a highly-intelligent and well-read man. So the fact that he used classical literature as the inspiration for his story came as no surprise. What was a bit of a pleasant surprise though was the fact that seven books into his series, the books continue to get better and better.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Junkyard Dogs

by Craig Johnson
306 pgs  (Longmire series #6)

The owner of the local junkyard, seventy-two-year-old Geo Stewart, broke his collar bone while cleaning out his chimney. He had tied a rope around his waist in case he fell off the roof, which he had tied off to the rear bumper of his '68 Oldsmobile Toronado. Unfortunately for Geo, someone decided to use the car and didn't notice the rope before they proceeded to drag Geo a few hundred yards down the road. While being treated at the hospital, Geo mentions to the staff that he recently found a severed thumb at the dump.This story finds its way back to Sheriff Walt Longmire, who begins a casual investigation into whom the thumb belonged to.

A few days later Geo dies of an apparent heart attack. But when the coroner discovers two puncture wounds on his body, Walt's investigation quickly becomes more serious and urgent. His investigation uncovers a sophisticated underground pot-growing operation, and a deadly feud between the Stewart family and the owner of a new housing development that borders their junkyard. Walt once again takes a physical beating throughout the book, getting pepper-sprayed, bit by a dog, and almost shot to death, all while still trying to recover from the abuse he suffered in the last book.

Johnson's Longmire series is a lot of fun to read. It's a smart mystery series and it gets progressively stronger with each book.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Dark Horse

by Craig Johnson
318 pgs   (Longmire Series #5)

There is no question as to whether Mary Barsad is guilty of shooting and killing her husband Wade. Wade had burned down their barn with Mary's prized horses trapped inside and Mary was found next to his body, holding the gun used to kill him, and incoherently mumbling and saying she killed him. But when Mary is transferred to Sheriff Walt Longmire's jail for a time because of overcrowding in the neighboring county, Walt begins to doubt the validity of the facts surrounding the seemingly open-and-shut case, as well as Mary's confession to the murder. Operating outside his jurisdiction, Walt tries to go undercover as an insurance agent in the small town where the crime took place, hoping to resolve his doubts and uncover the truth.

The fifth book in author Craig Johnson's Longmire mystery series, The Dark Horse adds another layer to each of Johnson's main characters: Sheriff Walt Longmire, his deputy Victoria "Vic" Moretti, and Walt's lifelong friend, Henry Standing Bear. Alone, each of them could be the central character in a book or series of books. The fact that they're all together as an ensemble in one series, ensures that each book is highly enjoyable and the type of book that you hate to see end each time.

I don't know why, but I'm repeatedly surprised and impressed with how good of a writer Johnson is. I think I subconsciously don't expect books this well written, to come from someone who lives in one of the most rural towns in Wyoming. I really should know better by now. These books are entertaining, smart, eloquent, and a lot of fun to read.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Another Man's Moccasins

by Craig Johnson
290 pgs  (Longmire series #4)

Another Man's Moccasins is the fourth book in Craig Johnson's ever-more-popular series featuring Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire. I enjoyed all three of the previous books in the series but with this one Johnson really seems to have hit his stride as an author. Its predecessors were all fun and entertaining murder mysteries, but with this one, Johnson adds another layer to his writing style.

Johnson tells two different stories, both mysteries, but separated by decades of Longmire's life in this book. In the present day, Walt is faced with investigating the death of a young Vietnamese girl whose body was dumped along the side of the highway. The prime suspect is an enormous Native American who has been living in a culvert underneath the freeway for several years. Walt discovers a picture on the young woman's body--a picture of himself as a young military inspector in Vietnam during the war. This picture forces Walt to replay in his memories a crime he investigated back in Vietnam in 1968.

As the book progresses, the story switches back and forth between the two times in Walt's life. Both investigations are captivating and the book as a whole is extremely well written, filled with moments of action and close calls. But I think the real accomplishment with this book is the added layer of humanity that Johnson is able to write into his protagonist. I'm a big fan of Johnson's creation, both in the books, and on the TV series, which hopefully will begin again soon. The character, as he's presented in this installment of the series is a major reason why he's so endearing.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Kindness Goes Unpunished

by Craig Johnson
388 pgs  (Longmire series #3)

Sheriff Walt Longmire is far outside of his jurisdiction in this third book in the series. Normally called upon to keep the peace and to deal with those who'd disturb it in some of the remotest parts of Wyoming, this time his deductive skills and no-nonsense approach to law enforcement are called upon in the City of Brotherly Love.

He travels to Philadelphia with his long-time friend Henry Standing Bear, whose photography collection is being put on display by a museum there and since Walt's daughter Cady practices law there, Walt decides to join Henry on the road trip. Shortly after arriving in, and before Walt has any time to spend with his daughter, Cady is assaulted and left in a coma. Things go from bad to worse for Walt a couple of days later when Cady's ex-boyfriend is killed and even those who know Walt can't help but suspect him of being involved.

This wasn't the best Longmire book I've read so far, but it was still enjoyable. Walt's a fantastic character and even during the parts of the book that fell flat for me, he more than made up for.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Death Without Company

by Craig Johnson
271 pgs  (Longmire series #2)

Death Without Company is Johnson's second Walt Longmire book. It picks up a few months after the conclusion of the first book--The Cold Dish, and it begins with the death of an elderly Basque woman, Mari Baroja, who had been residing at an assisted-living facility for the last few years of her life. Initially it was believed that she died of natural causes, but as Walt and his deputies look further into her past, they quickly discover that she had been poisoned.

Walt's investigation reveals that Baroja's past involved ties to the lucrative methane industry in Wyoming and to Walt's predecessor in the Sheriff's Office, the cantankerous and highly-enjoyable Lucian Connally. The more Walt and his deputies uncover about Baroja's life fifty years earlier, the more complex the mystery behind her death becomes.

Death Without Company is just as good as its predecessor and it increased my anticipation for reading the rest of the books in the series, both those that have already been written and those still to come. While I was reading it I also learned that A&E's Longmire has been renewed for a third season. So I've got plenty of Walt and his supporting cast of characters yet to enjoy.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Cold Dish

by Craig Johnson
354 pgs  (Longmire series #1)

I'm one of those late arrivals to the Craig Johnson party. For some time I had seen his books at bookstores but since I don't typically go for westerns, I never considered reading one of them . . . until Longmire--the A&E series based on Johnson's books. The TV series has gotten better and better as it's progressed and it eventually convinced me to check out the books. The Cold Dish is the second book I've read, but it was the first one written.

A few years before the story in The Cold Dish begins, a young Cheyenne girl was violated by a group of teenage boys. Sheriff Walt Longmire led the investigation which had eventually led to the boys' arrests, but the judicial system failed and the boys each got off with a slap on the wrist. The book begins with the discovery of a body up in the Big Horn mountains of Wyoming. The body is that of a young man who had been shot with a high-powered rifle. It's Cody Pritchard, the leader of the group of boys who had raped the Cheyenne girl years ago.

Once again it's Walt, who along with his deputy Victoria and his friend Henry Standing Bear who have to find out who killed Cody. The list of possible suspects is quite long, but when a second boy from the group is killed by the same weapon and only a few days later, the case takes on a whole new sense of urgency as it becomes clear to Walt that revenge is being exacted and he must stop it before the remaining two boys lose their lives as well.

Right before reading this book I attended a book signing event for his latest book and was able to listen to him talk about both the books and his involvement in the TV series. I was thoroughly impressed with the man. He is funny, gregarious, boisterous, and obviously a very intelligent and well-read guy. It was obvious from listening to him that he has a great love for the part of the country he lives in and which he uses as almost another character in his writing.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆