{"id":7038,"date":"2026-05-12T05:40:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=7038"},"modified":"2026-05-12T05:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:40:15","slug":"craig-johnson-the-brothers-mckay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/craig-johnson-the-brothers-mckay\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig Johnson: The Brothers McKay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walt Longmire #22 <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It’s no secret that Walt Longmire loves literature; so does his creator Craig Johnson. The Longmire books are filled with literary references and allusions but The Brothers McKay<\/em> is a straight-up homage to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov<\/em>. As a mystery lover, I’m embarrassed to admit I haven’t read Dostoevsky’s classic but it’s not required reading to understand and enjoy Walt’s latest adventure.<\/p>\n

Like The Brothers Karamazov<\/em>, The Brothers McKay<\/em> is about the murder of a despicable man (Pepper McKay) and his four sons, all suspects in his murder. At stake is the ownership of the O-Kay Lodge, a lucrative resort\/dude ranch built at the turn of the previous century. Without giving anything away, suffice to say the relationships of the four brothers are complicated and Walt uncovers lots of secrets and past discord. Complicating the investigation is the fact that one brother is a monk being visited by his Elder Bishop, Abbot Deputy, and a novice of their order, thereby increasing the suspect pool. But are the monks actually suspects? As in Dostoevsky’s novel, these characters lead a lot of interesting philosophical discussions about God and morality, an important theme of the story.<\/p>\n

Moments of levity are provided by Deputy Vic Moretti’s f-bomb laden vocabulary. Hearing a voicemail she leaves for Walt one of her fellow deputies comments \u201cYou know, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever heard anybody use that word that many times in that short of a message.\u201d (I laughed out loud!) We also see Vic meeting a fellow-Philadelphian; their use of Philly dialect puzzles Walt but is highly entertaining. (I’m tempted to say it’s “jawn.”)<\/p>\n

Also adding a lighter note to the plot is former Russian operative Maxim Sidorov, partially blinded by Walt in the climax of The Longmire Defense,<\/em> who wants to relocate to Durant, forcing a reluctant Walt to become his temporary parole officer. As a Russian, Max has insights on the McKay case based on his familiarity with The Brothers Karamazov<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Tension mounts through the last third or quarter of the book as wild fires threaten to engulf the O-Kay Lodge and its environs, trapping Walt as he closes in on the killer. Johnson excels at describing the man-vs-nature struggles he often places Walt in and the tension here was so intense I had to put the book down a couple times to escape. I knew Walt would survive but the horror of being trapped in a raging wildfire was so realistic it was, at times, almost unbearable. What a testament to Johnson’s mastery writing tension and drama!<\/p>\n

After wrapping up the case, Walt realizes that events at the end of The Longmire Defense<\/em> are coming back to haunt him. Sidorov learns that MIA Ruth One Heart, undercover federal agent and Walt’s aunt, is being held somewhere in Eastern Europe by bad guys associated with those from The Longmire Defense<\/em> \u2013 bad guys who will trade Ruth for Walt. The novel ends with Sidorov telling Walt they are \u201cgoing to ends of earth\u201d to find and rescue Ruth. I love the way Johnson ties his books together with on-going plots like this and am already looking forward to the next book. He said on Facebook he finished it six months early \u2013 but we still have to wait a year to read it.\u00a0— Cathy Akers-Jordan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walt Longmire #22 It’s no secret that Walt Longmire loves literature; so does his creator Craig Johnson. The Longmire books are filled with literary references and allusions but The Brothers McKay is a straight-up homage to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. As a mystery lover, I’m embarrassed to admit I haven’t read Dostoevsky’s classic but it’s … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[78,691,2487,2486,2075,692,2488],"class_list":["post-7038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-cathy-akers-jordan","tag-craig-johnson","tag-the-brothers-karamazov","tag-the-brothers-mckay","tag-viking","tag-walt-longmire","tag-wildfire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7040,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7038\/revisions\/7040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}