Instead of being in Philadelphia waiting for the arrival of his first grandchild, Walt Longmire is in Arrosa, looking into the suicide of Detective Gerald Holman. Gerald was a by-the-books detective and an old friend of Lucian Conally, Walt's former boss. Gerald's widow simply can't accept that her husband would take his own life, but as Walt digs into the case, he learns that Gerald was suppressing evidence that involves three missing women. With a blizzard threatening to bring the investigation to a standstill, Walt must follow the faint trail left by a detective who died to protect a horrible secret buried deep in the heart of Arrosa, and he must follow it quickly because if the Wyoming winter and deadly secrets don't kill him, Cady will if he misses the birth of his first grandchild!

In this tense, fast-paced mystery, Craig Johnson captures the desperate lengths people will go to in order to survive. I'm a huge fan of Craig Johnson's Longmire Mysteries and ANY OTHER NAME is no exception. Johnson's prose is sharp, witty, and fantastic. The characters in the Longmire Mysteries are one of my favorite casts. Each individual is unique and rounded, bringing complexity, conflict, and tension to the story. Walt and Cady's relationship is one of the best father-daughter relationships in print, and her phone calls to Walt in this story bring out another side to Walt's personality. Henry Standing Bear should get his own series because he's simply that fantastic. I smile the entire time I'm reading a scene with Henry. Lucian is a strong-willed, old-school sheriff. The drive to keep digging is ingrained in him, and he passed that on to Walt. But it's Vic and Walt's relationship that provides growing tension and conflict as they try to deal with the consequences of Vic's previous injuries. No one relationship provides the emotional core of the story, but rather, it's how the entire cast interacts that make them unique.

If you've never read a Longmire Mystery, you can read them out of order or as stand-alone novels, but part of the pleasure of this series is in seeing how the characters grow, change, and respond to each other. ANY OTHER NAME does have a few references to events in previous novels and while those events are explained well, the full emotional impact might be missed if you haven't read the other novels. My suggestion is to read them all! I would gladly read the 11 full-length novels back-to-back and never get tired of Walt Longmire. He is that interesting, and Craig Johnson's plots and prose style are that good.

ANY OTHER NAME captures the tense atmosphere of the hunt as Walt races to solve the mystery of three missing women before he get is trapped in the harsh Wyoming winter. Fast- paced, intelligent, and darkly humorous, ANY OTHER NAME by Craig Johnson is a fantastic addition to the Longmire Mystery series which will please fans and newcomers alike.

Book Summary

A sheriff’s mysterious death spurs the new novel in the New York Times bestselling Walt Longmire series

Sheriff Walt Longmire had already rounded up a sizable posse of devoted readers when the A&E television series Longmire sent the Wyoming lawman’s popularity skyrocketing. Now, with three consecutive New York Times bestsellers to his name and the second season of Longmire reaching an average of 5.4 million viewers per episode, Craig Johnson is reaching a fan base that is both fiercely loyal and ever growing.

In Any Other Name, Walt is sinking into high- plains winter discontent when his former boss, Lucian Conally, asks him to take on a mercy case in an adjacent county. Detective Gerald Holman is dead and Lucian wants to know what drove his old friend to take his own life. With the clock ticking on the birth of his first grandchild, Walt learns that the by-the-book detective might have suppressed evidence concerning three missing women. Digging deeper, Walt uncovers an incriminating secret so dark that it threatens to claim other lives even before the sheriff can serve justice—Wyoming style.