Book Review: “Any Other Name” By Craig Johnson

“Consequence is what we all are.” — Henry Standing Bear, "Any Other Name"

Craig Johnson is one of the best writers of detective fiction in the game today. 

Sure, that might sound like a bold statement. 

Ever since I first discovered Johnson’s Longmire mysteries at The Bookworm (in Omaha) during the summer of 2012, I’ve been hooked. 

In early 2014, Bridget let me “fill in the blanks” and order all the Longmire novels I was missing from my collection. We’d had the opportunity to meet Craig Johnson at an author event at The Bookworm (in support of his novel “A Serpent’s Tooth”).

Part of the reason I am so fond of the books is Johnson’s affable first-person narrative structure for the novels. Each book in the Longmire series is told from the protagonist’s point of view. 

Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire is one of the genre’s great protagonists. The Wyoming lawman is more than just a capable detective. Johnson has created a multi-layered man with all the flaws and foibles of a living, breathing human being. 

“Any Other Name” is the tenth novel in his Longmire series (I count “Spirit of Steamboat” — which is more of a novella — in the sequence of novels, but others might disagree). 

The story takes place in the winter — in the days between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Longmire — along with former boss Lucian Connally — is in neighboring Campbell County investigating the death of Detective Gerald Holman.

Holman, a by-the-book lawman, was married, had a daughter, and lived a seemingly contented life. As such, Lucian finds it odd that his friend committed suicide in a sketchy motel, and asks for Walt’s help looking into the death.

Longmire soon discovers that Holman was embroiled in an investigation involving three missing women. On the surface, there is little to link the three cases. 

But Walt — tenacious investigator he is — learns there is more to the story. His sleuthing takes him to a sleezy strip club in a town called Arrosa, a casino in Deadwood, and Custer State Park (a neat sequence in the novel featuring President Coolidge’s “Summer White House”). 

All of the intrigue is wrapped up in the snow, ice, and cold. Having lived my life in Nebraska, Johnson has a knack for capturing the bleakness of a high plains winter. (My favorite snow-based Longmire novel, in that regard, is “Hell is Empty.”)

There is also a recurring motif involving trains. While mile-long cargo trains serve as a plot device in “Any Other Name,” the locomotives could just as easily symbolize the divided lives on display in Johnson’s novel.

To top it all off, Longmire’s daughter Cady is in Philadelphia expecting her first child — and the distressed mother-to-be is worried Walt won’t make the plane flight she booked.

One of the signatures of a Longmire novel is witty banter between characters. Walt’s interactions with feisty deputy Victoria Moretti and long-time friend Henry Standing Bear are in full effect in “Any Other Name.” The characters in the series add depth and dimension. 

Bridget and I have had the opportunity to attend three book events with Craig Johnson at The Bookworm here in Omaha. If you get a chance to attend an event with Johnson, I highly recommend it. The experience is something akin to listening to a well-worn yarn around a cozy campfire. 

I’d also recommend you check out the “Longmire” television series on Netflix. I did blog posts on the show in 2016 and 2017 talking about the terrific blu-ray sets of the each season produced by the Warner Archive Collection. 

The series is a lot of fun because it has some variances from the novels. It is sort of like you’re watching Walt Longmire in a parallel universe where things are similar, but different. That means your experience reading the books won’t spoil the series, and vice versa (though, off the top of my head, two episodes in the series — “A Damn Shame” and “Unquiet Mind” — pull plot elements from the novels “The Dark Horse” and “Hell is Empty”).

There aren’t too many fiction series I have a burning desire to revisit multiple times. But Craig Johnson’s Longmire novels are one of those series I’d like to revisit in the future. The stories are more than mere “whodunnits” in the vast mystery landscape. 

Simply put, Johnson has brought us one of the best detective series on the market today... 

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