Synopses & Reviews
Walt faces an icy hell in this New York Times bestseller from the author of The Cold Dish and As the Crow Flies, the seventh novel in the Walt Longmire Mystery Series, the basis for LONGMIRE, the hit A&E original drama series Fans of Ace Atkins, Nevada Barr and Robert B. Parker will love this seventh novel from Craig Johnson, the
New York Times bestselling author of
The Cold Dish and
As the Crow Flies. 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 rumored to be one of the country's most dangerous sociopaths, has just confessed to murdering a boy ten years ago and burying him deep within the Bighorn Mountains. Walt is asked to transport Shade through a blizzard to the site, but what begins as a typical criminal transport turns personal when the veteran lawman learns that he knows the dead boy's family. Guided only by Indian mysticism and a battered paperback of Dante's Inferno, Walt braves the icy hell of the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area, cheating death to ensure that justice—both civil and spiritual—is served. The Walt Longmire mystery series is the basis for Longmire, the hit original drama series from A&E.
Review
“Walt continues to be excellent company because he’s always keen to learn something from the strong Indian characters in this series…This time a wizened old medicine woman takes Walt in hand, guiding him through a Native American Church peyote ceremony deep in the woods…he [has] a vision that expands his mind and helps him solve the case.”—Marilyn Stasio,
The New York Times Book Review
Review
“The pleasure of the series rests in Walt’s narration, with its laid-back, observant, bemused recounting of events…Solid landscapes, a mélange of fully fleshed characters (familiar and new), drily laconic dialogue and assorted power struggles—including Walt’s endless war with Rezdawg, Henry’s recalcitrant, falling-apart truck—keep the latest in this rich and satisfying series on engaging course.”—
Houston Chronicle
Review
“A top-notch tale of complex emotions and misguided treachery…
Crow is a superb novel steeped in the culture of the American West.”—
USA Today
Review
“Walt’s voice lets readers in on his gentle and wry nature, while showcasing his devotion to bringing bad guys or gals to justice…Johnson enriches his narrative by using the setting itself as another well-developed character. Johnson’s Northern Cheyenne characters defy stereotype with self-depreciating humor and strength. Chief Lolo Long and Tribal Chief Lonnie Little Bird are especially well-crafted and appealing.”—
The Denver Post
Review
“Johnson expertly highlights his conflicted hero’s dual role as father and sheriff in this deeply satisfying installment.”—
Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
Review
“All the elements his fans love are present: lively characters, easy banter, and, of course, a touch of the supernatural. In early books, Walt was less sure of himself, but, in his eighth adventure, it makes sense that he’s now the one “giving sheriff lessons.” This book fits the hand like a well-worn glove.”—
Booklist
Review
“With Hell is Empty, Craig Johnson delivers an action-packed Western thriller, rife with evocative setting and literary allusion. This seventh novel featuring wise-cracking Sheriff Walt Longmire creeps stealthily out of the corral with an increasingly tense setup.”
Review
“Johnson managed a rare feat: a mystery that is a literary novel. The story starts with a hilarious image: Longmire and his deputy sheriff, Santiago "Sancho" Saizarbitoria, hand-feeding a cheeseburger to a manacled prisoner. It gets infinitely more complex from there: an escaped prisoner with dead bodies in his wake; some unlikely unforeseen accomplices and hostages; and Longmire, never one to stand back and wait for help, tracking the criminals through the Bighorn Mountains.”
Review
“Johnson crafts a chilling allegorical tale of resolve and endurance…[and] uses his intimate knowledge of the landscape and wildlife of Wyoming to full advantage, making them characters in the action. Despite the dire situation, Johnson continues to employ gentle, wry humor and an authentic, no-nonsense Western voice in his dialogue, especially in Walt’s thoughts. And the immediacy of Walt’s peril pulls readers into the complex plot. Good stories that take place in the West are in short supply these days, and Johnson’s latest is the real deal with literary clout.”
Review
“Truly great. Reading Craig Johnson is a treat…[He] tells great stories, casts wonderful characters and writes in a style that compels the reader forward…He has outdone himself with his newest book, Hell Is Empty…A piece of quality fiction that is built on so many levels that you could read it two or three times and not catch all that Johnson is trying to say…This book deserves the attention of more than just mystery readers. It is a top-notch novel. It is worth both your money and your time.”
Review
“The story starts with a pitch-perfect piece of Johnson’s trademark scene-setting and then roars off into the wilderness, hardly leaving readers time to catch their breaths…In some ways, this reads like a book-length version of the haunting, harrowing final sequence of Johnson’s outstanding debut, The Cold Dish (2005). And when it comes to bad weather, western lore, and a chilling hint of the supernatural, few writers write it better.
Review
“Series fans and readers who enjoy C.J. Box and other authors of Western mysteries will be enthralled by this electrifying and intense work; a triumph.”
Review
“Stellar…When [Raynaud] Shade, who’s headed for death row in Utah, escapes and takes off into the wilderness with a blizzard threatening, Walt sets off alone on the killer’s trail…Soon Walt is past the point of no return as the snow and ice accumulate on a journey that evokes Dante’s Inferno.”
Review
“For Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire, the pursuit of a vicious murderer through a killer ice storm in the Bighorn Moutnains adds up to a cold day in hell…Deft as always.”
Review
“A muscular story of guns and grit, man against man and man against nature…the characters’ ascent is indeed hellish, pulling them deeper into a hypothermic fever dream where the line between the living and the dead blurs.”
Review
“Craig Johnson continues to crank out top-notch mystery novels featuring the adventures—and misadventures—of Walt Longmire, a modern-day Wymoning sheriff…Little wonder that he’s a winner of the Spur Award given by the Western Writers of America.”
Synopsis
The eighth novel from theNew York Timesbestselling author of the Longmire mysteries, the basis for the Netflix original seriesLONGMIREEmbarking on his eighth adventure, Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire doesn't have time for cowboys and criminals. His daughter, Cady, is getting married in two weeks, and the wedding locale arrangements have just gone up in smoke signals. Fearing Cady's wrath, Walt and his old friend Henry Standing Bear set out for the Cheyenne Reservation to find a new site for the nuptials. But their expedition ends in horror as they witness a young Crow woman plummeting from Painted Warrior's majestic cliffs. Is it a suicide, or something more sinister? It's not Walt's turf, but he's coerced into the investigation by Lolo Long, the beautiful new tribal police chief.
Craig Johnson'sThe Highwaymanis now available from Viking.An Obvious Factwill be available in September 2016.
"
Synopsis
The eighth novel from the
New York Timesbestselling author of the Longmire mysteries, the basis for the Netflix original series
LONGMIRE Craig Johnson'sThe Highwaymanand
An Obvious Factare nowavailable from Viking.
Embarking on his eighth adventure, Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire doesn't have time for cowboys and criminals. His daughter, Cady, is getting married in two weeks, and the wedding locale arrangements have just gone up in smoke signals. Fearing Cady's wrath, Walt and his old friend Henry Standing Bear set out for the Cheyenne Reservation to find a new site for the nuptials. But their expedition ends in horror as they witness a young Crow woman plummeting from Painted Warrior's majestic cliffs. Is it a suicide, or something more sinister? It's not Walt's turf, but he's coerced into the investigation by Lolo Long, the beautiful new tribal police chief.
"
Synopsis
"It's the scenery--and the big guy standing in front of the scenery--that keeps us coming back to Craig Johnson's lean and leathery mysteries."
--The New York Times Book Review The eighth Longmire novel from the New York Times bestselling author Land of Wolves
Embarking on his eighth adventure, Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire doesn't have time for cowboys and criminals. His daughter, Cady, is getting married in two weeks, and the wedding locale arrangements have just gone up in smoke signals. Fearing Cady's wrath, Walt and his old friend Henry Standing Bear set out for the Cheyenne Reservation to find a new site for the nuptials. But their expedition ends in horror as they witness a young Crow woman plummeting from Painted Warrior's majestic cliffs. Is it a suicide, or something more sinister? It's not Walt's turf, but he's coerced into the investigation by Lolo Long, the beautiful new tribal police chief.
Synopsis
Read Craig Johnson's posts on the Penguin Blog. Walt Longmire goes undercover to save a woman in an unfriendly place
Interweaving classic noir sensibilities and humor with contemporary themes of social justice, Craig Johnson's popular Walt Longmire mysteries transport readers to the sparse and rugged landscape of Wyoming. In The Dark Horse, the sheriff investigates when his instincts tell him something isn't right about a prisoner accused of killing her husband.
Wade Barsad, a man with a dubious past, locked his wife's horses in their barn and burned the animals alive. In return, Mary shot Wade in the head six times-or so the story goes. Walt doesn't believe Mary's confession, and he's determined to dig deeper. Posing as an insurance claims investigator, Walt soon discovers other people who might have wanted Wade dead, including a beautiful Guatemalan bartender and a rancher with a taste for liquor, but not for honesty.
The Dark Horse is sure to build on the success of Another Man's Moccasins as Sheriff Longmire unpins his star and ventures into a town without pity to save a woman without hope.
Synopsis
Read Craig Johnson's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community. A missing thumb and dead developers are only the beginning for Sheriff Walt Longmire
It's a volatile new economy in Durant, Wyoming, where the owners of a multi-million dollar development of ranchettes want to get rid of the adjacent junk-yard. When a severed thumb is discovered in the yard, conflicts erupt, and Walt Longmire, his trusty companion Dog, life-long friend Henry Standing Bear, and deputies Santiago Saizarbitoria and Victoria Moretti find themselves in a small town that feels more and more like a high plains pressure cooker.
Craig Johnson's award-winning Walt Longmire mysteries continue to find new fans, and Junkyard Dogs is sure to create many more devotees. The sixth book in the series is filled with Johnson's signature blend of wisecracks, Western justice, and page-turning plot twists, as the beloved sheriff finds himself star-deep in the darker aspects of human nature, in a story of love, laughs, death, and derelict automobiles.
Synopsis
Walt Longmire unravels a mystery that connects two murders across forty years When the body of a young Vietnamese woman is found alongside the interstate in Absaroka County, Wyoming, Sherriff Walt Longmire is determined to discover the identity of the victim and is forced to confront the horrible similarities of this murder to that of his first homicide investigation as a marine in Vietnam.
To complicate matters, Virgil White Buffalo, a homeless Crow Indian, is found living in a nearby culvert and in possession of the young woman?s purse. There are only two problems with what appears to be an open-and-shut case. One, the sheriff doesn?t think Virgil White Buffalo?a Vietnam vet with a troubling past?is a murderer. And two, the photo that is found in the woman?s purse looks hauntingly familiar to Walt.
In the fourth book in Craig Johnson?s awardwinning Walt Longmire series, the tough yet tender sheriff solves two murders tied in blood but separated by nearly forty years.
Synopsis
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 maintaing 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.
Synopsis
Walt gets shanghaied into a murder investigation on the Reservation in this New York Times bestseller from the author of The Cold Dish and Hell Is Empty, the most recent novel in the Walt Longmire Mystery Series, the basis for LONGMIRE, the hit A&E original drama series Fans of Robert B. Parker will love this eighth adventure in the New York Times bestselling and award-winning Walt Longmire mystery series. Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire has a more important matter on his mind than cowboys and criminals. His daughter, Cady, is getting married to the brother of his undersheriff, Victoria Moretti. Walt and old friend Henry Standing Bear are the de facto wedding planners and fear Cady’s wrath when the wedding locale arrangements go up in smoke two weeks before the big event.
The pair set out to find a new site for the nuptials on the Cheyenne Reservation, but their scouting expedition ends in horror as they witness a young Crow woman plummeting from Painted Warrior’s majestic cliffs. It’s not Walt’s turf, but the newly appointed tribal police chief and Iraqi war veteran, the beautiful Lolo Long, shanghais him into helping with the investigation. Walt is stretched thin as he mentors Lolo, attempts to catch the bad guys, and performs the role of father of the bride.
Synopsis
On the heels of A&Es blockbuster show Longmirethe latest New York Times bestseller in a a top-notch tale of complex emotions and misguided treachery” (USA Today) The recent A&E premiere of
Longmirea television series based on Craig Johnsons
New York Times bestselling Longmire Mystery Serieswas the highest rated scripted drama in the networks history and consistently held its viewers throughout the season. Its success has readers stampeding to the bookstore, making
As the Crow Flies Johnsons biggest hardcover success. In his eighth adventure, Walt Longmire doesnt have time for criminals. His daughter is getting married in two weeks and the wedding locale arrangements have just gone up in smoke signals. He needs to find a new site for the nuptialsfast. Unfortunately, his expedition to the Cheyenne Reservation is derailed by a grisly death. Its not Walts turf, but hes coerced into the investigation by Lolo Long, the beautiful new tribal police chief.
Synopsis
Walt doubts a confession of murder in this novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Cold Dish and As the Crow Flies, the fifth in the Walt Longmire Mystery Series, the basis for LONGMIRE, the hit A&E original drama series Fans of Ace Atkins, Nevada Barr and Robert B. Parker will love The Dark Horse is the fifth installment in New York Times bestselling author Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire mystery series, the basis for LONGMIRE, the hit A&E original drama series. Wade Barsad, a man with a dubious past and a gift for making enemies, burned his wife Mary's horses in their barn; in retribution, she shot him in the head six times. But Sheriff Walt Longmire of Wyoming's Absaroka County doesn't believe Mary's confession. Leaving behind the demands of his upcoming re-election campaign, Walt unpins his star to go undercover and discovers that everyone-including a beautiful Guatemalan bartender and a rancher with a taste for liquor-had a reason for wanting Wade dead.
Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Cold Dish and As the Crow Flies, a modern-day range war in the sixth novel in the Walt Longmire Mystery Series, the basis for LONGMIRE, the hit A&E original drama series Junkyard Dogs, the sixth installment in the
New York Times bestselling Walt Longmire mystery series, the basis for
LONGMIRE, the hit A&E original drama series, takes us to Durant, Wyoming. It's a volatile new economy in Durant when the owners of a multimillion-dollar development of ranchettes want to get rid of the adjacent Stewart junkyard. Meeting the notorious Stewart clan is an adventure unto itself, and when conflict erupts—and someone ends up dead—Sheriff Walt Longmire, his lifelong friend Henry Standing Bear, and deputies Santiago Saizarbitoria and Victoria Moretti find themselves in a small town that feels more and more like a high-plains pressure cooker.
The hilarious and suspenseful sixth book in the Longmire series from The New York Times bestselling author of Hell Is Empty and As the Crow Flies finds our sheriff up to his badge in the darker aspects of human nature, making his way through the case with a combination of love, laughs, and derelict automobiles.
About the Author
Craig Johnson is the author of eight novels in the Walt Longmire mystery series, which has garnered popular and critical acclaim. The Cold Dish was a Dilys Award finalist and the French edition won Le Prix du Polar Nouvel Observateur/Bibliobs. Death Without Company, the Wyoming Historical Association’s Book of the Year, won France’s Le Prix 813, and Kindness Goes Unpunished, the third in the series, has also been published in France. Another Man’s Moccasins was the Western Writers of America’s Spur Award Winner and the Mountains & Plains Book of the Year, and The Dark Horse, the fifth in the series, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. Junkyard Dogs won The Watson Award for a mystery novel with the best sidekick and Hell Is Empty as well as As the Crow Flies (the eighth in the series) were New York Times bestsellers. All are available from Penguin. Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire novels have now been adapted for television in the hit series Longmire on A&E. Johnson lives in Ucross, Wyoming, population twenty-five.