Sarah and Carolyn join Craig Johnson at Longmire Days 2024 in Buffalo, Wyoming, to discuss the latest book in the Walt Longmire western mystery series, First Frost.
Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of the Longmire novels, which are the basis for Longmire, the hit Netflix drama. He lives in Ucross, Wyoming (pop. 26).
The books have won multiple awards: Le Prix du Polar Nouvel Observateur / Bibliobs, the Wyoming Historical Association’s Book of the Year, Le Prix 813, Western Writers of America Spur Award, the Mountains & Plains Book of the Year, SNCF Prix de Polar, Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, The Watson Award, Library Journal’s Best Mystery of the Year, the Rocky, and the Will Rogers Award for Fiction.
It’s the summer of 1964, and recent college graduates Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear read the writing on the wall and enlist to serve in the Vietnam War. As they catch a few final waves in California before reporting for duty, a sudden storm assaults the shores and capsizes a nearby cargo boat. Walt and Henry jump to action, but it’s soon revealed by the police who greet them ashore that the sunken boat carried valuable contraband from underground sources.
The boys, in their early 20s and at the peak of their physical prowess from playing college football for the last 4 years, head out on Route 66. The question, of course, is how far they’ll get before the consequences of their actions catch up to them — the answer being, not very.
Back in the present day, Walt is forced to speak before a Judge following the fatal events of The Longmire Defense. With powerful enemies lurking behind the scenes, the sheriff of Absaroka County must consider his options if he wishes to finish the fight he started.
Going back and forth between 1964 and the present day, Craig Johnson brings us a propulsive dual timeline as Walt Longmire stands between the crossfire of good and evil, law and anarchy, and compassion and cruelty at two pivotal stages in his life.
New York Times bestseller First Frost is the 20th novel in the Walt Longmire mystery series. It was released on May 28, 2024. Sarah Harrison and Carolyn Daughters are thrilled to be in Buffalo, Wyoming, to meet with Craig Johnson during the annual Longmire Days festival.
Two Storylines
Craig Johnson, you “find it interesting to discover the sheriff’s history and grow closer to the man who he becomes and why” (Acknowledgements). This book intertwines Walt’s past and present. While in the present, he’s sitting in a hearing, questioning his use of force. He’s also reminiscing about he and Henry’s road trip after enlisting in the Vietnam war. The mystery is actually embedded in the plot from the past.
How did you come up with this storytelling method, and why make the mystery the past plot line?
Cliffhanger of a NOVEL
Many authors make each chapter a cliffhanger to keep the reader turning, but after the past mystery is revealed here, the present case ends with a cliffhanger, presumably to be resolved in the next book. Craig Johnson, is that the plan here?
Does he end many of his books in this way?
Does he end one book knowing the plotline of the next?
How far does he see his story arc reaching out?
When is the next book coming out?
Young Walt Longmire
He’s presumably about 21, yet his voice sounds like an old soul to me even then. Is that the case?
Craig Johnson, how do you think Walt has changed between the time he’s remembering and the “present day”?
“Well the same thing goes for the truth: if enough people tell it, then it becomes something; something important, something honest.”
Beverly Rondelle says to Walt, “You don’t think wealth and power can warp that truth.” He says, “Not in my county” (204).
Craig Johnson, can you speak to Walt’s sense of truth and the importance it plays in these books?
(Walt and girlfriend Rachael squared off on Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment; he saves people on the boat in Malibu because “it’s the right thing to do.”)
Yet, the ending resolves not with the truth revealed to the world but with a pragmatic solution Walt describes: “It wasn’t honest, but it served a common good” (315).
Can you resolve this for us? Or let us in on how Walt resolves this for himself?
Setting of the Past
Craig Johnson selects some difficult themes as the setting for this novel. Two young men between wars. About to go fight in Vietnam, while solving a mystery from WWII. The bombing of Pearl Harbor, the American internment of Japanese citizens at internment camps like Bone Valley, Japanese biological experimentation on Chinese “logs.” (The Heart Mountain Internment Camp is about 3 hours west of Buffalo/Ucross.)
What inspired you to select these themes as your setting, including bringing in the biological warfare aspect?
Executive Order 9066, signed by President FDR on 2/19/42, authorized the forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans and others deemed a threat to national security during WW2. 120,000 people were confined; 1,600+ people died due to inadequate healthcare and environmental stress; some people were shot.
What roles do revenge and redemption play in how the story unfolds?
Henry
He’s quite the best friend but also a sparring partner. They fight each other and risk their lives for each other. Talk to us about their friendship.
Craig Johnson, do you have a Henry in your life?
The Book’s Title
First frost is when you switch from a straw cowboy hat to a fabric one. What else does “first frost” signify? The epigraph is “Through wind, hail or frost my living’s made” by 15th-century French poet François Villon, who wrote about his multiple encounters with law enforcement.
Grace
Ferg admits to screwing up in The Cold Dish. Sancho admits to screwing up in First Frost. In both cases, Walt has faith in them. Are they learning? Growing? That’s good enough for Walt.
Tell us what you think, and we may share your thoughts in our next episode and send you a fabulous sticker! (It really is a pretty awesome sticker.)
Tea, Tonic, and Toxin is a book club and podcast for people who love mysteries, thrillers, introspection, and good conversation. Each month, your hosts, Sarah Harrison and Carolyn Daughters, will discuss a game-changing mystery or thriller from the 19th and 20th centuries. Together, we’ll see firsthand how the genre evolved.
Along the way, we’ll entertain ideas, prospects, theories, doubts, and grudges, along with the occasional guest. And we hope to entertain you, dear friend. We want you to experience the joys of reading some of the best mysteries and thrillers ever written.
Teasers & Tidbits
Dashiell Hammett’s crime novel Red Harvest is more than just a gripping detective story. It’s also a political statement, inspired
When Dorothy L. Sayers wrote Whose Body? (her debut novel, published in 1923), she introduced a detective who would go
If you’re a fan of Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries, I’m sure you’re already familiar with Hercule Poirot, the eccentric Belgian
This detective novel introduces readers to a British mining engineer – Richard Hannay – who has just returned to London
Even though the name of this book is Trent’s Last Case, the novel is actually about the FIRST detective case
Long before he started writing his own detective stories, Gilbert Keith (G.K.) Chesterton was already a fan of the genre.
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