Published by Viking on May 26, 2026
It’s been a minute since I read a Walt Longmire novel. Longmire seems to have gotten into trouble with some Russians. An old friend of Longmire named Ruth One Heart is being held captive in Russia. A Russian named Maxim Sidorov who once tried to kill Longmire might now help him rescue Ruth. That subplot would have meant more to me if I had kept up with the series, but it has little to do with the plot that drives the story. That’s fortunate for me and for readers who want to enjoy The Brothers McKay as a standalone.
The main plot is a murder mystery. Longmire’s undersheriff explains the difference between a murder mystery and a thriller. In a murder mystery, the obvious killer is the last person the reader would suspect. In a thriller, “we’d know who it was in chapter two and then have five-hundred pages of chase.” Craig Johnson adds some thrills as the story nears its climax but substitutes a forest fire for a chase.
Pepper McKay is found dead in a river where was fishing. He got drunk for breakfast and may have slipped and hit his head on a rock but an extra set of footprints in the river suggests that someone might have clobbered him. Since everyone hated McKay, the list of suspects is long. The list begins with his biological sons — David, Ian, and Alan — and a young man named Manx Henenoka, who (rumor has it) is his illegitimate son.
Pepper owned a ranch where Manx is the head wrangler. David is the son of Pepper’s first wife and has already squandered his mother’s inheritance on gambling and women (like father, like son). Ian is a journalist and Alan is a monk at Wyoming’s Saint Benedict Monastery. Shortly before Pepper died, Pepper and his sons had a family meeting that didn’t go well. All the kids are accordingly suspects.
Pepper and David were both sleeping with Paetra Agirra, as were some other men. She was sneaking in and out of the house regularly and might have been there on the morning of Pepper’s death, so she is among the suspects. Paetra’s uncle, a notable Wyoming thug named Boris, made the suspect list by repeatedly threatening to kill Pepper for shagging his niece.
Other suspects include ranch foreman Gary Lyman and his wife Lynn, who were largely responsible for raising Manx; David’s fiancée (or possibly ex) Katherine Verkhov; Michael Rakin, a novice at the monastery who, together with Elder Zebrowski and abbot deputy Brian Schiffer, was visiting Alan; Bob Erlichman, who resented Pepper’s interference with his planned wind farm; and “neighbors in all directions” who had their own Wyoming-style reasons for wanting Pepper dead.
The title is an allusion to The Brothers Karamazov, a book that characters in The Brothers McKay discuss at some length. The murder mystery in Dostoevsky’s novel is unsolved (characters speculate about the reveal Dostoevsky would have penned if he had lived long enough to turn the novel into trilogy), so familiarity with the Russian masterpiece won’t provide much of a clue to Longmire’s mystery.
A reader might as well throw darts at the novel and hope one lands on the murderer, but Craig Johnson plants real and false clues, giving the reader at least some chance of guessing the reveal. I give Johnson enormous credit for crafting a credible mystery, which is something of a lost art in the modern world of crime novels and their endless chase scenes.
Longmire gets an assist from his friend and series regular Henry Standing Bear and Sidorov helps Longmire get a handle on The Brothers Karamazov. Both are interesting characters, but the star of the show is a mule named Borax.
The novel creates palpable tension as it nears the end. Longmire is surrounded by a wildfire but, in heroic fashion, tries to save a character who seems intent on committing suicide by fire. For some time, it’s an open question whether Longmire will save the stubborn Borax or whether Borax will save him.
Longmire novels are always impressive. Johnson keeps the story moving at a steady clip, creates amusing characters, surrounds them with authentic atmosphere (a smoke-filled atmosphere in this novel), and avoids the nonsense that permeates Wyoming politics. The result is a strong entry in a series that rarely disappoints.
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