Walt Longmire Books in Order
Part ofCraig Johnson Books in OrderFind the Walt Longmire books by Craig Johnson in order, with short summaries, a series overview, and simple guidance on where to start reading.
Last updated: December 21, 2025
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Publication Order
27 books
The Brothers McKay
by Craig Johnson
2026
An upcoming Longmire mystery set after Return to Sender, The Brothers McKay brings Walt Longmire back for another high-stakes investigation, promising more Wyoming landscapes, hard questions of justice, and the familiar mix of danger, humor, and loyalty.
Return to Sender
by Craig Johnson
2025
When Blair McGowan, a mail carrier with a three-hundred-mile route across Wyoming’s Red Desert, disappears, Walt Longmire goes undercover in her place. Following her deliveries leads him to fringe communities and a dangerous cult that may hold the key to her fate.
Tooth and Claw
by Craig Johnson
2024
Set in 1970 on Alaska’s North Slope, Tooth and Claw finds a young Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear working for an oil company when a polar bear attack, a blizzard, and treacherous coworkers trap them in a deadly fight for survival on the ice.
First Frost
by Craig Johnson
2024
Shifting between the summer of 1964 and the present, First Frost follows a young Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear on a road trip that strands them near a former internment camp, even as an older Walt faces the fallout of a controversial shooting back home.
The Longmire Defense
by Craig Johnson
2023
A routine search-and-rescue in the Bighorn Mountains turns explosive when Walt Longmire’s dog uncovers a rifle tied to a 1940s elk-camp murder. Following the trail into land deals and a secret mineral fund, Walt discovers the weapon once belonged to his own grandfather.
Hell and Back
by Craig Johnson
2022
Walt Longmire wakes in a deserted Montana street with no memory, surrounded by ghosts of a deadly 1896 boarding-school fire. Trapped in a looping, snowbound night stalked by a soul-stealing legend, he must reclaim his past to escape with his sanity.
Daughter of the Morning Star
by Craig Johnson
2022
Tribal police chief Lolo Long asks Walt Longmire to protect her niece Jaya, a high school basketball star receiving death threats on the Northern Cheyenne reservation. As Walt probes Jaya’s missing sister’s case, he confronts violence tied to the crisis of missing Native women.
Next to Last Stand
by Craig Johnson
2020
When an elderly veteran dies at the Wyoming Home for Soldiers and Sailors, Walt Longmire finds a torn canvas and a shoebox full of cash. The clues point toward Custer’s famous painting and a long-ago art heist that someone may be willing to kill over.
Land of Wolves
by Craig Johnson
2019
Back home in Wyoming after Mexico, Walt Longmire investigates the death of a Basque shepherd that may be murder, not suicide. Strange messages, an endangered boy, and a controversial wolf on the Bighorn slopes tangle personal loyalties with the politics of predators.
Depth of Winter
by Craig Johnson
2018
Cartel boss Tomás Bidarte has kidnapped Walt Longmire’s daughter, Cady, and hidden her in remote northern Mexico. Far from his home turf and official backup, Walt crosses the desert alone, assembling unlikely allies to storm an outlaw stronghold and bring her home alive.
The Western Star
by Craig Johnson
2017
A photograph of twenty-five lawmen standing before a steam locomotive sends Walt Longmire back to his early days as a deputy on the Western Star excursion train. A deadly journey in the past collides with a present-day parole hearing and a threat of long-simmering revenge.
The Highwayman
by Craig Johnson
2016
In the isolated Wind River Canyon, highway patrol officer Rosey Wayman starts receiving desperate radio calls from a colleague who died decades ago. Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear join her to unravel a haunting legend and a very human crime behind the ghostly signals.
An Obvious Fact
by Craig Johnson
2016
During the Sturgis motorcycle rally near Devils Tower, a young biker is critically injured in a hit-and-run. Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear uncover rival gangs, federal agents, and a notorious woman from Henry’s past, where nothing about the crash is as simple as it appears.
Dry Bones
by Craig Johnson
2015
When a nearly complete Tyrannosaurus rex fossil nicknamed Jen is unearthed on Cheyenne land, a rancher’s suspicious death turns the discovery into a political and financial battle. Walt Longmire must navigate tribal claims, federal pressure, and family grief to uncover a killer.
Any Other Name
by Craig Johnson
2014
A fellow detective apparently dies by suicide in neighboring Campbell County, and Lucian Connally asks Walt Longmire to investigate. Racing a looming blizzard and the birth of his first grandchild, Walt reopens cold cases of missing women that someone wants left buried.
Spirit of Steamboat
by Craig Johnson
2013
On a snowy Christmas Eve, a mysterious young woman sends Walt Longmire and retired sheriff Lucian Connally back to 1988, when they risked their lives flying a battered World War II bomber through a blizzard to save a gravely injured girl.
Messenger
by Craig Johnson
2013
Driving home from a fishing trip, Walt Longmire, Henry Standing Bear, and Vic Moretti answer a distress call to Crazy Woman Canyon. They find a ranger and camper treed atop a portable toilet, three hungry bears below, and something even stranger trapped inside.
A Serpent's Tooth
by Craig Johnson
2013
When a teenage lost boy from a polygamist sect turns up in Absaroka County looking for his mother, Walt Longmire’s search leads to an armed fundamentalist compound, oil interests, and whispers of intelligence work, forcing him to protect the vulnerable in a holy war.
Divorce Horse
by Craig Johnson
2012
Still bruised from his mountain manhunt, Walt Longmire wants downtime, but a prized relay horse tied to a bitter divorce vanishes during American Indian Days. Walt, Cady, and Henry plunge into parade chaos to keep tempers—and the investigation—under control.
As the Crow Flies
by Craig Johnson
2012
Two weeks before Cady’s wedding, Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear search the Cheyenne Reservation for a new venue and witness a young Crow woman fall from a cliff. Walt helps rookie chief Lolo Long untangle whether it’s suicide, accident, or murder.
Hell Is Empty
by Craig Johnson
2011
Escorting a group of violent prisoners through the Bighorn Mountains, Walt Longmire loses them in a deadly blizzard when a calculating killer escapes. Alone in the high country, guided only by grim visions and stubborn will, he tracks a predator toward a buried crime.
Junkyard Dogs
by Craig Johnson
2010
When a developer feuds with the eccentric Stewart clan over their ramshackle junkyard, Absaroka County erupts into a modern range war. Walt Longmire must sort sabotage, missing body parts, and family grudges before the town explodes.
The Dark Horse
by Craig Johnson
2009
Mary Barsad confessed to shooting her husband six times after he locked her beloved horses in a burning barn. Walt Longmire isn’t convinced, and an undercover trip into a rough Wyoming town reveals motives and enemies enough to kill for.
Another Man's Moccasins
by Craig Johnson
2008
After a young Vietnamese woman is found murdered beside a Wyoming highway, Walt Longmire sees echoes of his first homicide case as a Marine in Vietnam. The trail forces him to revisit wartime ghosts and protect an accused drifter he doesn’t believe is guilty.
Kindness Goes Unpunished
by Craig Johnson
2007
While visiting his daughter Cady in Philadelphia, Walt Longmire is dragged into big-city politics and drug crime after she is viciously assaulted. With Henry Standing Bear and Vic Moretti at his side, Walt hunts the attacker through a maze of corruption.
Death Without Company
by Craig Johnson
2006
An elderly Basque woman dies in a Wyoming nursing home, and everyone assumes it was natural—except former sheriff Lucian Connally. Walt Longmire’s investigation into her poisoning exposes old secrets, tangled loyalties, and a killer with decades of grudges.
The Cold Dish
by Craig Johnson
2004
Veteran sheriff Walt Longmire wants a quiet final term in Absaroka County, but when a young man tied to a brutal assault on a Cheyenne girl turns up murdered, he must sift vengeance from justice before more boys die.
Series background & context
The Walt Longmire books follow a county sheriff in a sparsely populated corner of Wyoming, trying to keep his stretch of high plains both honest and humane. Walt runs the fictional Absaroka County, based on real towns near the Bighorn Mountains, and each story drops him into a mystery that could only happen there. On the surface he is a familiar western figure – big, weathered, a Vietnam veteran who would rather talk things down than shoot – but the books lean into his doubts as much as his strengths. He is a widower still talking to his late wife, a father trying to stay close to his daughter Cady, and a lawman painfully aware that every decision has a cost for neighbors he sees at the grocery store.
He is never working alone. Henry Standing Bear, a Cheyenne bar owner and Walt’s oldest friend, acts as conscience, cultural bridge, and backup in tight spots. Undersheriff Victoria Moretti, an ex–Philadelphia homicide detective with a sharp tongue, drags big‑city instincts into small‑town cases. Former sheriff Lucian Connally, Walt’s cranky mentor, and a rotating cast of deputies, ranchers, Basque families, and tribal officers round out the core ensemble.
Setting is almost a character of its own. Blizzards, high‑country trails, lonely highways, and the Northern Cheyenne and Crow reservations all shape what Walt can do and how fast help can arrive. Many cases start as something simple – a body in a ditch, a dispute over land, a missing boy, a suspicious crash – then grow into conflicts involving energy companies, old war stories, politics, or crimes that stretch far beyond county lines.
Across the main sequence of novels you see that range: early books focus on revenge killings and nursing‑home secrets; later ones send Walt south into cartel territory, after missing fossils, or deep into unresolved cold cases. Shorter works and novellas, like the Christmas story Spirit of Steamboat or the Alaska survival tale Tooth and Claw, fill in key moments from his past. Collections gather quieter episodes from around the edges of the big investigations.
Many of the mysteries carry a subtle layer of the uncanny. Cheyenne stories, dreams, and ghostly figures sometimes nudge Walt in the right direction or force him to question what is real. The books never turn into full‑blown fantasy, but they sit comfortably in a gray area where spiritual experience and hard evidence sometimes overlap.
The series also sits alongside its screen version. The Longmire television adaptation uses the same central cast and basic setting, but plots and character arcs often diverge. For readers, the novels feel like a richer, slower tour through Absaroka County, with more time for Walt’s inner voice and side characters.
Taken together, the Walt Longmire stories read like a chronicle of one sheriff’s life: a mix of murder cases, road trips, confrontations, and coffee‑soaked mornings in the office. Each book stands alone, but reading in order lets you watch friendships deepen, wounds accumulate, and a western community change around its reluctant hero.
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