Onyx reviews: Land of Wolves by Craig Johnson

Reviewed by Bev Vincent, 07/14/2019

The after-effects of his ordeal in Mexico, where Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire rescued his daughter from a ruthless killer, are still present. Not only does he have a gaping wound in his abdomen that is slow to heal, his energy level is low and he's lost a lot of weight. Beyond that, he has fugue periods that can last several minutes at a time. His under-sheriff and sometimes lover, Vic Moretti, is concerned.

He's not back behind his desk very long when a suspicious death is reported—that of a sheep. Than, a shepherd is found hanged in the woods near the pastures where sheep graze. It might be a suicide, but it could equally well be a murder. Complicating matters is the fact that a renegade lone wolf nibbled at the corpse's extremities while it dangled from a tree limb, and was probably also responsible for the death of the sheep.

Wolves aren't common in this part of Montana, and the locals are in an uproar. Legends about packs of wolves decimating flocks and attacking humans abound, even though most of them are unfounded. Since it is legal to hunt and kill wolves in Absaroka County, everyone with a gun threatens to take after the lobo. Walt tries to calm the natives, but he takes a few hits about his recent absence from his position and he responds in an uncharacteristically outspoken manner.

He's also taking grief back at the office, where his longtime aide-de-camp, Ruby, is frustrated with Walt's refusal to get with the times. He has begrudgingly accepted possession of a cell phone, but Ruby still has to print out any emails he receives and type his hand-scrawled responses. She has a new PC delivered to his office and his various officers each try their hand at familiarizing him with its operation. As far as Walt is concerned, the greatest function the computer can perform for him is to display photographs of his daughter and granddaughter.

The shepherd's death leads Longmire into contact with the Extepares, a wealthy Basque ranching family that has a long history in the region. One of the men in the family went to prison for the shooting that cost Longmire's former boss, Lucian Connally, his leg. (The book's title comes from a Basque saying that translates to "A land of strangers is a land of wolves.")

Then there's the matter of the wolf, a creature known as 777M that Vic dubs Larry, after Lon Chaney Jr.'s character in the Wolf Man movies. The wolf has an uncanny connection to Walt and he begins to wonder if it's the spirit of his old friend Virgil White Buffalo. Scattered candy wrappers from a long-ago era reinforce that notion, as does his longtime pal, Henry Standing Bear. At times it seems like the wolf might be entirely in Walt's imagination, but for the fact that it nibbled on the shepherd's cadaver.

To make matters even more interesting, Johnson tosses in Keasik Cheechoo, an attractive and aggressive advocate for the wolf, the possibility that the dead shepherd had a dark violent past in his native Chile, a conspiracy theorist who suggests a werewolf is operating in Absaroka, and a YouTube celebrity investigating the possibility of child molestation in the county.

Compared to Depth of Winter, Land of Wolves is relatively slow paced, in part because Longmire is still on the mend. His recovery has also had an impact on his relationship with Vic, and at times it seems like he might be getting ready to hand over the badge to the next generation, possibly to Deputy Sheriff Santiago "Sancho" Saizarbitoria, whose Basque heritage proves to be helpful in getting to the bottom of the situation with the ranchers and their shepherds.