The Highwayman

Wyoming’s scenic Wind River Canyon provides the setting for this atmospheric Walt Longmire novella, an update, according to Johnson (The Spirit of Steamboat) in the acknowledgments, of a Charles Dickens ghost story, “The Signal-Man.” For three months, Rosey Wayman, a Highway Patrol officer, has been on duty in the canyon, and on some nights, she receives a distress call on her radio: “officer needing assistance.” Rosey, who’s due for a psychiatric evaluation, thinks the call is from Bobby Womack—a patrolman who perished nearly 50 years earlier while trying to stop a runaway fuel tanker in a canyon tunnel. Longmire, the sheriff of Absaroka County, and his sidekick, Henry Standing Bear, assume there has to be a natural explanation, but in their search for the truth they learn some surprising things about Bobby and the long-ago theft of a cache of Morgan silver dollars. You don’t have to be a fan of Longmire, the hit Netflix series, to appreciate this clever tale. [em]10-city author tour. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents. (May) [/em]