Book Review: Sheriff hunts for a missing postal worker and tussles with a cult

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The longest mail route in the U.S. runs more than 300 miles through Wyoming’s unforgiving Red Desert, and Blair McGowan, the delivery person, has gone missing.

Her disappearance is odd, not just because McGowan has always been reliable but because her personal delivery vehicle, a 1968 International Travelall that looks like a hearse and has a quarter of a million miles on it, was left behind.

Authorities in Sweetwater County haven’t made any progress, so Mike Thurman, the postal inspector, asks Walt Longmire, sheriff of (fictional) Absaroka County, to find her. The desert is way out of Longmire’s jurisdiction, but Thurman is family on the sheriff’s wife’s side, so he agrees.

So begins “Return to Sender,” Craig Johnson’s 22nd installment in a series that inspired a TV show that ran for 6 seasons on A&E and Netflix.

Given the size of the desert and the length of time McGowan has been missing, Longmire puts his chances as “not likely.” Going undercover as a postal worker, which fools nobody, he and his dog named Dog head off into the desert in the ancient Travelall and follow the woman’s delivery route.

Johnson is known for creating memorable characters, and perhaps the most memorable this time is Dog, a German Shepherd-Saint Bernard mix who is as smart and loyal as they come. The Travelall emerges as something of a character in its own right, with its quirks and an odd body shape plastered with Flower Power, Grateful Dead, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and Age of Aquarius stickers.

Eventually, Longmire discovers McGowan in the clutches of a weird-as-they-come religious cult, shoots it out with its gun-toting members, and commits several remarkable acts of heroism.

Near the middle of the story, the author inserts characters and elements from a previous novel that might confuse newcomers to the series. Fortunately, that section, which hints at what may be coming in the next instalment, is short.

Johnson’s plot is suspenseful and fast-moving, the prose is tight, and the landscape is vividly drawn.

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Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including “The Dread Line.”

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