I do have a couple reviews lined up for next week, but Kevin Tipple always seems to know when I’m reading on deadline. Today, he’s sharing his review of Craig Johnson’s The Longmire Defense. Thank you, Kevin.

The Longmire Defense by Craig Johnson finds Sheriff Longmire thinking about the past and a
future beyond being the good Sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming. The next election is
coming in a few months and Longmire might be done as Sheriff. Between the politics, the strain
and stress of running for office yet again, and recent events, he could be working his way around
to calling it quits.

He’s out at the family cabin in the Bighorn National Forest as the book begins and Cady, his
daughter, inadvertently stirs up the past by cleaning the place. She came across an old picture of
her great grandfather, Lloyd Longmire. Cady and his granddaughter are out at his place cleaning
and keeping an eye on him as he recovers from recent events. She has questions about her great
grandfather and Walt would just as soon not talk about him.

He might have been family in name, but he was a man that Walt had a rocky relationship with
despite, or maybe because, of the family tie. He was a hard man with strong expectations and
constantly passed judgement of others. That included his grandson, of whom he apparently did
not think much of at all. The picture shows Lloyd Longmire and a group of others outside the
Bank of Durant many years ago. That picture has started a line of questioning that Walt
Longmire could do without as he lies in a hammock holding a book and his sleeping
granddaughter.

Then Undersheriff Victoria Moretti shows up and drags him with her to go looking for a missing
woman. The woman from Minnesota, who was following the navigation map on her phone and
thus followed bad directions, got her car stuck on a relatively nearby Forest Service Road. She
walked a bit, finally got cell service, called for help, and then instead of staying put and waiting
for that help, left the area. Now she is missing and Undersheriff Moretti wants Longmire to come
do a ride along with her to go check out a possible route the missing woman might have taken.

Recent events in Montana have a taken a toll and though he is physically healed, mentally and
spiritually he isn’t, and he really doesn’t want to do it. But, with Cady pushing him as well, he
goes with Moretti. and it isn’t long before the problem of the missing woman lost in the
mountains.

Longmire finds Trisha Knox.

He also finds a rifle, a specially customized rifle, that could be tied into a killing from long ago.

The killing of Bill Sutherland, known as “Big Bill,” happened back in 1948 and was declared a
hunting accident. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. But, Lloyd Longmire as well as Walt’s dad
were involved. Finding the gun brings ghosts and more to life in a complicated tale of oil money,
mercenaries, and politics in The Longmire Defense.

Much is going on in the read that spends most of the time looking at events in the past with a
somewhat morose Walt Longmire more contemplative than usual. In the here and now, Walt is
facing the possibility of big change in a couple of areas as well so that means he has a lot on his
mind. Introspection is good and all that, but it does get to be a bit much here at times as it grinds
the read to a near halt. This reader also gets the impression that the series might be ending fairly
soon. One hopes not.

Despite everything, The Longmire Defense is a good read. The story keeps the reader engaged,
even when it moves forward at a glacial pace, and we learn more about the Longmire family and
their legacy. All in all, a good read.

My reading copy came in eBook form from the Dallas Public Library System by way of the
Libby/OverDrive App.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2023