THE BROTHERS MCKAY

Solving the murder of the most hated man in Absaroka County, Wyoming, is no easy case for Sheriff Walt Longmire.

Wealthy landowner Pepper McKay is found dead in a trout stream on his O-Kay Ranch. Did he slip and hit his head on a rock, or was he murdered? Pepper was an indifferent parent, an alcoholic, a womanizer, and a rapist. He had three sons from his marriage—David, Ian, and Alan, who were all at the ranch for a family meeting the night before Pepper’s body was found—and another, Manx Henenoka, the product of an affair with a Shoshone cook who worked at the ranch. They all hated Pepper to varying degrees. Manx’s story is the best example of Johnson’s deep dives into characterization. Different in every way from his half brothers, he lives at the ranch, where he was raised by foreman Gary Lyman and his wife, Lynn, after his mother died, and expects nothing of Pepper. Manx wins Walt’s admiration for his blunt answers to questions and his skill training a mule named Borax. Two sets of boot prints at the scene hint at murder, delighting Walt’s undersheriff and fiancée, Victoria Moretti. Even Walt has a motive for the crime: Years ago, Pepper tried to rape his now late-wife. In addition to the murder case, there are several dangers: Wildfires threaten the ranch, and Walt is stuck acting as parole officer for Maxim Sidorov, an erudite Russian spy who once tried to kill him. Both Pepper and David were once involved with a woman named Paetra Agirra, whose hot-tempered uncle has already killed three men. Unlike the average lawman, Walt has a philosophical bent, lives by his own code, and reads voraciously. But it’s Maxim who points out the similarities between Pepper’s family and The Brothers Karamazov that could crack the case.

A complex, cerebral mystery with a plethora of suspects that demands out-of-the-box thinking and help from a heroic mule.