(2022) Well, that was weird. Just after helping in the story of the indigenous girl threatened by white nationalist, we find Walt in some kind of fantasy dream-world. Is he dead? Is he asleep and dreaming? Is he in a coma. He appears to be in his own version of the Wandering Without and battling a lot of his own demons. Stuck in Fort Pratt Montana where a boy's Indian school had burnt in the late 1800s killing 31, he gets trapped in that time and does manage to save those boys but then to find himself trapped again by bad mojo out to kill him. Reality (I think) is that while driving in the area, he is attacked by another white nationalist who runs him down with a snow plow and Walt saves himself under a massive bell from the burnt out school. Couldn't put it down. KIRKUS: Nightmare, out-of-body experience, time travel, and mental illness are all possibilities for a man who awakens knowing neither his name nor where he is.Sheriff Walt Longmire of Absaroka County, Wyoming, wakes up in a heavy snowstorm frozen to the street. At first his only reality is snow, the sound of bells, and two silver dollars in his lap. Then he sees a sign for the Fort Pratt Industrial Indian Boarding School. His period of hell on earth starts with a visit to a restaurant staffed by a stunning blond woman who looks familiar. She tells him his name, which is written in his hat's sweatband, and identifies their locale as Fort Pratt, Montana. His next interaction is with an enormous man whom the waitress can't see, a man dressed in the clothes of a Mountain Crow, who departs with an enigmatic comment. The two meet again while Walt, who's looking for a policeman, discovers a woman in a movie theater who again seems familiar and a priest who claims to be researching a book on the Indian boarding school where 31 children reportedly perished in a fire. In the meantime, Walt's best friend, Henry Standing Bear, and his deputy, Vic Moretti, come looking for him. Just like Walt, they keep running into the same people whose lives make no sense in a town where the time is always 8:17 p.m. After Walt manages to save the children from that fire, which took place many years before the time he seems to be living in, he gets locked in a desperate battle with a shape-shifting monster whose name just might be death.A mystical thriller that offers a wild ride through a thoroughly altered reality.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022ISBN: 978-0-59-329728-5Page Count: 352Publisher: Viking

Along the way in this series, Johnson has flirted with Indian ghost story figures and supernatural elements. With this novel, he incorporates the concept as the central theme. The result is my favorite Longmire book, to date.

There had been a slight gap in my series reading before I picked this one up, so some names were familiar, but hard to place. Johnson does an admirable job of reminding the reader where these characters were first encountered.

The series regulars are all there: Standing Bear and Vic, working hard to provide back-up when Walt’s work leads him into danger; Cady to anchor him in the real world; and Lola to provide hope for the future and smiles as only small children can do. ( )

This book is not about it's namesake by Audie Murphy. I did not enjoy this one as much as the usual Longmire stories because it was just plain weird. Events are revealed in a way they seem to make no sense and then gradually meld into a story. Like it predecessor, this book delves into the unnatural and Twilight Zoneish things that are a departure, and not a good one, from the Longmire genre. Please go back to the basics. Humor. Fun. Case solving. ( )

My least favorite of Johnson's 18 books in the Longmire Series. I'm a huge fan and have watched all the movies made from them. I like that he invokes Native American traditions, themes, and people, but they are usually are less dominant in his stories. This book moves from his modern Western story telling to more of a horror/fantasy genre, which isn't appealing to me. ( )

Any Longmire book with Vic at a minimum is a good book. This was a good one. ( )