If you’ve read any of my four past reviews of the Longmire series, you know that I enjoy Craig Johnson’s work. His characters are family, at this point. Walt, Henry, Vic, Cady, and the entire crew have found their way into my heart with their larger-than-life personalities and down-to-earth emotional turns. However, in The Dark Horse, that magic seemed to fade a bit.

As with the rest of Craig Johnson’s work, this novel is very good. However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. Walt was solo for a large part of this outing, with a handful of his usual gang showing up on occasion to eat up the scenery, and they definitely did that. However, it felt more like cameos than them actually doing anything constructive. The story itself didn’t really grab me like the others did, either.

A woman confesses to shooting her husband in the head six times after he burns down their barn with her horses inside, but Walt doesn’t believe her. So, he goes undercover in the tight-knit community of Absalom, Montana, where he finds everyone in town had a reason to want her husband, Wade, dead.

It’s a compelling enough mystery, but it felt like the story was riding on Longmire’s whim for too long. He seemingly happens upon answers as the story progresses, and gets away with more than he should. We don’t get the spirituality that is found in the other novels. There is family drama, but it doesn’t feel fully resolved by the end.

All said, it’s an above-average novel that doesn’t hold up to its predecessors. It doesn’t hurt the series, but it doesn’t really add much to it either. I look forward to seeing what comes next.