Craig Johnson’s Next Novel Drops May 27, Was Inspired By Cowboy State Daily Story

Ucross, Wyoming, author Craig Johnson is well-known for his true-to-life crime stories, more often than not inspired by real news stories. In the case of his latest and greatest Sheriff Walt Longmire adventure, titled “Return to Sender,” which will be out May 27, the news story that sparked it all was published in May 2023 by Cowboy State Daily.

“There was an article about this woman who had, like, the longest postal route in the United States,” Johnson told Cowboy State Daily. “And I thought, of course, with the nefarious mind of the crime fiction writer, the first thing I thought was, if she went missing, where would you look for her? Because the postal route she had was, near as I can remember, something like the size of Maryland.”

Cowboy State Daily’s story by Jake Nichols followed in the footsteps of Tebra Morris, a native of tiny Bairoil, Wyoming, on her contract mail route that covers 300 miles of territory between Rawlins and Lander. 

The route along Highway 287 includes places like Muddy Gap, Split Rock, Jeffree City and Ice Slough — each little more than a wide spot in the road with a tiny cluster of mailboxes breaking up an endless landscape that’s more dust and sagebrush than it is anything else.

Morris is also one of the few people who can get permission to drive on closed roads from the Wyoming Department of Transportation, because mail has to get where it’s going in a timely fashion.

All that suggested rich story ideas to Johnson, who said he’s always wanted to explore the Red Desert and Rock Springs area of southwest Wyoming.

“I’m always looking for interesting spots in the state to do something a little bit different,” Johnson said. “And that area near Rock Springs and the Red Desert has always been an interesting area for me.”

Giving Walt Wings

One of the challenges that many mystery writers face is figuring out how to unwrite their protagonist from some dusty literary corner that is pigeon-holing the star and clipping their writing wings.

“When I first started out, all of the books pretty much took place in the fictitious county of Absaroka,” Johnson said. 

That was fine in the beginning for a budding soon-to-be New York Times best-selling author. But Johnson is a creative soul. It didn’t take long before he wanted to expand his writing just a bit.

Fortunately, he quickly realized that not only could he move his star sheriff, Walt Longmire, around a little bit, but realism actually sort of demanded that he do so.

“A lot of times, the protagonists do these amazing things and then, the next book, nobody remembers that they saved the world or did something really incredible,” Johnson said. “To me it seems that with a character like Walt, his reputation should precede him a little bit. People should probably be aware that he’s very, very good at what he does. So, he might get opportunities handed to him by those other 23 sheriffs in Wyoming.”

Or, as is the case in “Return to Sender,” those opportunities might come from someone like the postal Inspector for the state of Wyoming.

“He gets this request from, basically, a cousin of his deceased wife who works for the Postal Service,” Johnson said. 

At the time, Longmire is also dealing with a lot of things in his own personal life, like the fact his daughter is about to be appointed attorney general for the state of Wyoming, as well as other things that are complicating his own life and career.

But no matter how inconvenient it is, Longmire doesn’t really feel that he can refuse this request from his wife’s relative. 

“So, he really doesn’t have much choice,” Johnson said. “He has to go try and deal with this like he would any other major investigation.”

Day In the Life Of A Postal Worker

One of the first things Johnson did as he was growing his story ideas for “Return to Sender” was to just call up the Postal Service and talk with them about his idea, to find out how realistic it would be.

“It was funny because when I asked them what kind of investigation can you mount in a situation like this one, they said, ‘Well, you know, a missing postal worker is not a federal offense,’” Johnson said. “But then they laughed and said, ‘But the mail being missing would be a federal offense. So, you could basically go and get anybody you wanted to mount an investigation.’”

But Johnson didn’t stop there. He took things to the next level by tagging along with a friend who was a postal worker to see what a typical day is like for a mail carrier. One thing he learned right off the bat is they start pretty early in the morning.

“They were able to give me all kinds of information and stuff that I was completely unaware of, and it was very, very valuable,” Johnson said.

Things like how the mail gets sorted and packed up, what kind of equipment is used to scan the mail, all the right acronyms and jargon, as well as how lost mail gets handled. Most valuable of all, though, was just seeing the mail service through a postal worker’s eyes.

“They look at it like there’s this river of mail that’s constantly running, and it’s their job to make sure that those tributaries get out to those mailboxes out there in real areas,” Johnson said. “And there’s all these stories about people using snowmobiles or people actually dying as they’re trying to get the mail to people, so I’ve always been a great admirer of the postal service. I think they do just an absolutely incredible job.”  

World’s Worst Undercover Agent

Everything Johnson learned about the Postal Service just made him more convinced he was onto another great mystery for Longmire to solve, so his next step was to start fleshing out a plot.

Doing that is a bit like detective work for Johnson as well. He has to think about who Longmire really is, and one of the things Johnson realized that makes the story fun is that some of the things that have made Longmire a famous sheriff and crackerjack sleuth are also things that make him a lousy undercover agent.

“I don’t think there’s anybody who is a worse undercover operative than Walt Longmire,” Johnson said, laughing. “He’s like the absolute worst.”

Johnson has a lot of fun with the plot points that presents, putting Longmire into some very interesting — and dangerous — predicaments.

“How long can he really keep people from figuring out who he is?” Johnson said. “Because it’s not like he’s an unknown in the state of Wyoming. I mean, having done all the things he’s done, people are going to know who he is if they hear his name.”

It also doesn’t help that Longmire tends to stand out in a crowd, all 6 feet, 5 inches and 250 pounds of him. Nor, as the sheriff of Absaroka County, is Longmire particularly used to keeping his mouth shut and just quietly blending in. 

“So that makes it a little bit more difficult for him, too,” Johnson said. “He’s a known entity, and so trying to go undercover is just a little bit tough for him, and he’s just not very good at it.”

In His Footsteps

One of the big reasons Johnson’s novels are so popular is because he knows how to keep them fun for readers. There’s a little bit of a secret formula to that, and it all relates to keeping the novels fun for Johnson as well. 

To do that, Johnson has a hands-on process that has taken him essentially everywhere Walt Longmire has ever been. Johnson doesn’t just want to walk a mile in Longmire’s shoes. He wants to walk — or sometimes ride — all of those miles.

“Photographs can sometimes be misleading,” Johnson said. “And a map, you can look at a map, but it really doesn’t give you a lay of the land, and certainly not on like a human scale, which is the really tricky part.”

So, for “Return To Sender,” Johnson hopped on his trusty dual-sport motorcycle, which he likes because it’s so agile and ready for adventure. Then he headed out for a fun exploration of Rock Springs and the Red Desert. Think ice cream at the Farson Mercantile, and hikes into the Red Desert kind of fun.

Johnson went to the area not just once but twice, the first time to just get inspiration and a general lay of the land. The second time was to nail down the specifics after he’d fleshed out the overall plot, and make sure his story was truly realistic.

“You have to go to those places, and then the other fun part is like getting off the bike or out of the truck or whatever and going for hikes,” Johnson said. “And having a basic idea of what the storyline is and walking into all the places that Walt goes to, imagining all the things that are going to happen to him in these given situations, and then figuring out where are the places that the story will actually work.”

Talking It Up

Along the way, Johnson also talks to real people from the area, absorbing some of the history and learning fun things about the area’s history that aren’t in any books yet. Local color, journalists like to call it. And it is a large feature of Johnson’s stories, and a big reason why he has so many Cowboy State fans.

“You’ll hear stories, or you’ll get little statements from people or things that are really kind of very colorful and distinct and different,” Johnson said. 

One of his favorite examples of this is in the first book he wrote, which was set along the Powder River.

“And there’s a bar out on the Powder River, and I remember talking to the sheriff of Johnson County, Larry Kirkpatrick, and he says, ‘Well, you got a mistake right there in the first chapter,’” Johnson said. “And I said, ‘Well what’s that?’ And he says, ‘Well you got people drinking beer out of bottles at a bar out on the Powder River. It’s can-only bars out on the Powder River because people can throw bottles and hurt each other.’”

When Johnson suggested that people could throw a full can of beer and still hurt someone, the sheriff just laughed. 

“He says, ‘Craig, nobody on the Powder River ever threw a full can of beer,’” Johnson recalled.

Of course, that had to make its way into the final version of the novel, and it did. Tidbits like that are another thing that makes writing about Wyoming so much fun for Johnson, as well as an endless source of inspiration. 

“Early on I had people saying, ‘Well do you worry about running out of ideas? And I’m like, ‘No, I live in Wyoming for goodness sake,” Johnson said. “I’ve got more ideas than I know what to do with.’”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.