Author: Craig Johnson
Published: September 20th 2022 by Viking
Format: Hardcover, 336 pages
Genre: Police Procedural
Series: Longmire #18
First Sentence: There was a sound of bells and then silence – the kind of quiet that only comes with snow, capturing the soundwaves of life and smothering them before they can cry out.
Blurb: Picking up where Daughter of the Morning Star left off, the next Longmire novel finds the sheriff digging further into the mysteries of "the wandering without"--a mythical all-knowing spiritual being that devours souls.
Walt thinks he might find the answers he's looking for among the ruins of an old Native American boarding school--an institution designed to strip Native children of their heritage. He has been haunted by the image of the Fort Pratt Industrial Indian Training School ever since he first saw a faded postcard picturing a hundred boys in uniform, in front of a large, ominous building--a postcard that was given to him by Jimmy Lane, the father of Jeanie One Moon.
After Walt's initial investigation into Jeanie's disappearance yielded no satisfying conclusions, Walt has to confront the fact that he may be dealing with an adversary unlike any he has ever faced before.
My Opinion: Craig Johnson digs deep into Walt Longmire’s past to bring the reader face to face with Walt’s nemeses from past books and reveals a place in between, Fort Pratt, a town of Walt’s dead, where fiction meets science fiction with a western gothic romance twinge and a bit of horror on the side.
Without reading the previous seventeen books in the series, a first-time reader will get lost and not truly appreciate the depth of the narrative. Long-time readers are reminded of Walt’s history with Martha to Mallow Cups to Bidarte, and all the others along the way. As the book states, all haunting is regret, and Walt’s grief is waiting for him in a small Montana town. Walt will continue to face his burdens, and will continue to do so, even if it means an endless cycle of knowing The Wandering Without is just around the next corner.
This turned out to be one of my favorite books in the series. It’s not the typical police procedural that Craig Johnson is known for, but from time to time, it’s good to shake things up a bit.
Blurb: Picking up where Daughter of the Morning Star left off, the next Longmire novel finds the sheriff digging further into the mysteries of "the wandering without"--a mythical all-knowing spiritual being that devours souls.
Walt thinks he might find the answers he's looking for among the ruins of an old Native American boarding school--an institution designed to strip Native children of their heritage. He has been haunted by the image of the Fort Pratt Industrial Indian Training School ever since he first saw a faded postcard picturing a hundred boys in uniform, in front of a large, ominous building--a postcard that was given to him by Jimmy Lane, the father of Jeanie One Moon.
After Walt's initial investigation into Jeanie's disappearance yielded no satisfying conclusions, Walt has to confront the fact that he may be dealing with an adversary unlike any he has ever faced before.
My Opinion: Craig Johnson digs deep into Walt Longmire’s past to bring the reader face to face with Walt’s nemeses from past books and reveals a place in between, Fort Pratt, a town of Walt’s dead, where fiction meets science fiction with a western gothic romance twinge and a bit of horror on the side.
Without reading the previous seventeen books in the series, a first-time reader will get lost and not truly appreciate the depth of the narrative. Long-time readers are reminded of Walt’s history with Martha to Mallow Cups to Bidarte, and all the others along the way. As the book states, all haunting is regret, and Walt’s grief is waiting for him in a small Montana town. Walt will continue to face his burdens, and will continue to do so, even if it means an endless cycle of knowing The Wandering Without is just around the next corner.
This turned out to be one of my favorite books in the series. It’s not the typical police procedural that Craig Johnson is known for, but from time to time, it’s good to shake things up a bit.
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