“You’re too big to surf.” It’s an observation (incorrectly) stated throughout this 20th in the Walt Longmire series, leading to the explanation of why the 6’ 4” sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming has a surfboard stored in his cabin. Back in 1964, Walt Longmire was a Rose Bowl-winning football player for USC, giving the Wyoming native a chance to surf the waves with his best friend Henry Standing Bear.
After the events depicted in Hell and Back, Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire is recovering at the home of “The Greatest Legal Mind” of our time, aka his daughter Cady. His enjoyment of also getting to hang out with his new granddaughter is cut short when he is called back to work to investigate a missing motorist who unfortunately trusted a little too much the accuracy of Google Maps.
When the man wakes up, he doesn’t know his name, where he is, or how he got there. A sign above an Industrial Indian Boarding School informs him that he is in Fort Pratt, but it’s a strangely familiar café waitress who tells him that he is in Montana. A band in the hat he’s wearing seems to indicate that it’s a gift to one Walt Longmire of Absaroka County, Wyoming, while the familiar-feeling gun in his holster is one issued to lawmen.
“I am a young woman in modern America, living on the Rez – my life is always in danger.” When Jaya “Longbow” Long says this to Absaroka Sheriff Walt Longmire, the high schooler is only speaking the truth. Native women are murdered at a rate ten times higher than the national average, yet the numerous reasons linked to racial and economic disparities are often ignored by the general media. Jurisdiction miscommunications and confusion play a large role in this as well, which is why Lame Deer, Montana, Chief Lono Long has requested/ordered a favor from the Wyoming sheriff.
After recent traumatic events, the case of a dead sheep should be a relief for Wyoming’s Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire. Instead, the following investigation brings no end of headaches, mostly in the form of wolf conservator Keasik Cheechoo, a labor advocate determined to protect both immigrant workers and the wolf she’s tagged.
For over a year, Absaroka Sheriff Walt Longmire has been battling the ruthless drug lord and Mexican cartel leader Tomas Bidarte. Not only did he hire assassins to kill Walt, Bidarte is responsible for a countless number of deaths that includes that of Walt’s son-in-law. Their skirmishes become outright war when Bidarte kidnaps Walt’s attorney daughter, forcing the normally lackadaisical lawman on an unwavering mission to rescue Cady.
A request from friend and new Hulett Officer Corbin Dougherty to investigate a suspicious motorcycle accident has Sheriff Walt Longmire and his best friend Henry Standing Bear out of Absaroka County and in Devils Tower, Wyoming. The neighboring Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and its million attendees already overwhelm Hulett's minuscule police force, and the news that the crash victim was a member of the Tre Tre Nomads motorcycle gang could harken to an impending war between clubs.
Fans of the long-running series featuring Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire return again and again to the novels for the entertaining wit and complex plots that delve into the darkest of crimes of his sparsely populated county. It is in the novellas, though, where Johnson is able to explore Wyoming’s distinct Native American culture and legends that explore the nature of man and his relationship with the land.
Jane and Lily as seniors? Seriously funny.
The success of the Netflix show Grace and Frankie starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin might have audiences rethinking the nature of old on television. Comedy is a time-honored way to challenge assumptions and G & F take on age and same sex marriage right out of the box. Add on interracial adoption and any number of semi-sacred cows with just enough I-can’t-believe-they-said-that to remind us that we’re not watching your grandmother’s broadcast television.
Rock skipping and fly-fishing. Only in Absaroka County, Wyoming, does that mean skipping rocks to chase turtles away from a body and using a fish-hook to reel it in. Danny Lone Elk has unfortunately met his demise in his favorite fishing spot, nibbled on by the very creatures he championed. Even more inconvenient for Sheriff Walt Longmire is the discovery on Danny Lone Elk’s land of “Jen,” possibly the world’s most important–and valuable–fossilized skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Paleontologists, museums, the U.S. government, Danny Lone Elk’s family, and the Cheyenne Conservatory all contest ownership of the eight-million-dollar prize, but the one with the last word is, inconveniently, the late Danny Lone Elk.
