Christmas in Absaroka County
It’s holiday season in Absaroka County and Sheriff Walt Longmire gets personal in this delightful collection of four short stories from New York Times–bestselling author Craig Johnson.
The hit drama Longmire is now streaming on Paramount+
Full of Longmire’s dry wit and good heart, Christmas in Absaroka County is a holiday must-have for every Longmire and Craig Johnson fan, and it also includes the first chapter of The Cold Dish, the first novel in the Longmire Mystery Series.
Readers glimpse a softer side of Sheriff Walt Longmire as he grapples with the death of his wife, Martha, and his sometimes turbulent but ever-loving relationship with his daughter, Cady. In these four stories—“Ministerial Aid,” “Slick-Tongued Devil,” “Toys for Tots,” and “Unbalanced” (three of which have been sent to Johnson’s fans over the years in the author’s “Post-it” e-mails)—Walt is alternately at his best and his worst. He helps a somewhat delusional elderly victim of domestic abuse while sporting a bathrobe and a mean hangover on New Year’s Day. He’s sidelined by grief when his wife’s obituary reappears in the paper and there’s an unexpected knock on his door two days before Christmas. He strives to help even those who don’t want it when he picks up a young female hitchhiker, and he’s forced into some last-minute Christmas shopping by the Greatest Legal Mind of Our Time, during which he might just end up saving a young Navy chaplain’s Christmas.
Craig Johnson
In the wind-cut high plains of Wyoming, justice doesn’t come with a badge and a booming voice—it comes with quiet conviction, a deep sense of place, and a stubborn refusal to look away. That’s where Craig Johnson sets his stories, and it’s where his voice has found a lasting home. Best known for the Longmire series, Johnson has carved out a distinct space in modern Western crime fiction—not with flashy gimmicks, but with layered characters, stark landscapes, and a kind of storytelling that lets silence speak as loudly as gunfire.
Walt Longmire Mysteries
Out where the wind carves stories into canyon walls and justice isn't always clean-cut, one sheriff walks the line between duty and doubt. The Walt Longmire Mysteries are steeped in the raw, unforgiving beauty of Wyoming’s Absaroka County—a place where the past lingers like smoke and every silence feels like it’s holding its breath.
Walt Longmire Mysteries consists of twenty-two primary books, and includes six additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
