A Serpent's Tooth

Starred review from March 18, 2013
Just in time for the second season of the A&E TV series Longmire comes bestseller Johnson’s deeply satisfying ninth Walt Longmire novel (after 2012’s As the Crow Flies). On the personal front, the Wyoming sheriff worries about his deepening relationship with Victoria “Vic” Moretti, his intelligent undersheriff, because of their age difference and because he’s the boss. A more serious worry for Walt is Cord Lynear, who appears to be about 15 and is looking for his mother. A delusional homeless man appoints himself Cord’s bodyguard. Cord turns out to be a “lost boy,” kicked out of a secretive polygamous group led by his stepfather, Roy Lynear, which has been putting down roots in nearby states. Although the zealots use teenage guards so inexperienced they don’t even know where the safety is on their guns, nothing is amateurish about the thugs who control the compound. Suspense propels the brisk plot, complemented by a sly sense of humor and a breathtaking look at Wyoming. 12-city author tour. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents.

February 15, 2013
The vast, lonely spaces of rural Wyoming attract some unusual lifestyles. It's up to Sheriff Walt Longmire to sort the good from the bad. Longmire's problems start when Cord Lynear, a Mormon "lost boy" who's been thrown out of a polygamous Mormon compound so that the older men can have their choice of women, wanders into Absaroka County looking for his mother. Assisting Longmire, as usual, are his friend Henry Standing Bear, aka The Cheyenne Nation, and his deputy Victoria Moretti, a tough, beautiful woman he considers much too young for him. Among the strange people he turns up in his quest are a man who claims to be 200-year-old Mormon enforcer Orrin Porter Rockwell; Cord's grandmother, Eleanor Tisdale, who runs a bar and store in the tiny town of Short Drop; Roy Lynear, who owns a large, heavily fortified ranch and who may be Cord's father; and Tomas Bidarte, a Mexican poet who's handy with a knife. A visit to another Lynear compound in South Dakota leads to a run-in with more lost boys and a confrontation with yet more Lynears. A little help from a friend in the CIA identifies Rockwell as CIA agent Dale Tisdale, reportedly killed in a plane crash in Mexico. When someone burns the sheriff substation and almost kills one of his deputies, Longmire and his friends take actions that may be the death of them. Longmire's ninth (As the Crow Flies, 2012, etc.) is a tense, action-filled story with Johnson's usual touches of humor and romance. No wonder Longmire's TV series has been renewed for a second season.

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April 1, 2013

Sheriff Longmire and his team find themselves entangled with an armed and dangerous polygamist Mormon community in this ninth case (after As The Crow Flies). The TV series, Longmire, returns for its second season this summer.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2013
There comes a time in many long-running series when plot, no matter how carefully crafted, becomes secondary to the reader's pleasure in seeing the characters interact. This, the ninth installment of Johnson's series about genial Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire, is that book. The plot, here, is both more convoluted and more modern than usual: though it starts with the appearance of a Mormon lost boy and an elderly fellow who appears to have walked out of the Book of Mormon, Walt finds himself taking on a shady, well-armed crew who just may be using religion as a cover for a more nefarious scheme. Through it allthrough deaths and conflagrationsruns the easygoing give-and-take among Walt, his deputy/love interest, Victoria Moretti, old friend Henry Standing Bear, and deputies Saizarbitoria, Double Tough, and Frymire. Sticklers may be put off by Walt's growing disregard for the rule book (and, perhaps, the relative ease with which national secrets are uncovered), but fans will eat it up. And, with the second season of Longmire airing soon on A&E, Walt's playing to a larger audience than ever.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)