Mystery

(2013) Melissa gave me this book for Christmas (signed by Johnson). Longmire gets involved trying to find a missing woman from a Mormon polygamus group. The group is actually a front for a oil stealing gang. The climax involves Walt rushing the compound with an oil tanker that Henry blows up. Vic saves Walt but in the act suffers a severe knife wound that kills her (and Walt's) unborn baby. KIRKUS REVIEWThe 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 Tom?s 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.Pub Date: April 23rd, 2013ISBN: 978-0-670-02645-6Page count: 352ppPublisher: VikingReview Posted Online: Jan. 29th, 2013Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15th, 2013

This is another great installment in the Walt Longmire series. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found the plot involving an extreme religious group to be intriguing and well thought out. I enjoyed the developments in the relationship between Vic and Walt. Unlike other reviewers here, I enjoy the relationship between Vic and Walt.

I've enjoyed the series that A&E has created, but I found that I had to separate that series from the characters created by Craig Johnson. Walt is not nearly as clever and witty on the tv show, Vic is not pretty enough nor crass enough and while I like Lou Diamond Phillips, he is absolutely NOT Henry Standing Bear.

All that said, I'm a little annoyed at the cliff hanger with the ending of this book because 1 year is just too long to have to wait to find out what happens. ( )

A Serpent’s Tooth by Craig Johnson is the 9th book in the Walt Longmire series. I am a big fan of this series, and although it’s been awhile since I had read one, I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with Montana sheriff Walt and his friends.

The story opens with the discovery of a homeless, underage Mormon “lost boy” who Walt takes under his wing. The boy, Cord, declares that his mother is dead, and indeed, all Walt’s efforts to have her traced seem to back up the boy’s story. Both Walt’s best friend, Henry Standing Bear and his feisty deputy Victoria Moretti get involved in the search and although they don’t find the boy’s mother, they turn up some very suspicious behavior as they are led to investigate an interstate polygamist group who are armed to the teeth and follow their own laws. There is definitely something going on and Walt is determined to find out what these people are working so hard at concealing.

I remember that I wasn’t all that fond of the last book, but in this book the author returns his focus on familiar characters and situations that make this series work so well. And while the romantic involvement of Walt and Vic was moved along to a certain point, it wasn’t to the detriment of the story. I will certainly be continuing to read this engaging series. ( )

No. 9 in the Walt Longmire series, this one begins and ends with a funeral, and Walt learns that the high school is retiring both his number and Henry Standing Bear's as well at the annual rival football game. Will he go to the ceremony? Will he live long enough to decide? There is a psuedo-Mormon group ensconced in a remote corner of Absaroka County near the old Teapot Dome oil fields, and it looks like what they're up to may have little to do with prayer. When a clueless teenaged boy shows up looking for his mother, who he says has been cast out of the Apostolic Church of the Lamb of God, suspicions start to pile up. About the same time a man claiming to be Orrin Porter Rockwell shows up armed to the teeth. He's old, he looks the part and he has the history down pat, but he's not 200 years old, so who is he really, and what's he up to? Things get hot and dangerous, the Sheriff's department takes some nasty hits, Walt takes some reckless chances, and his relationship with Vic gets really interesting. ( )