Review: ‘The Highwayman’ packs a punch with its tight plot

When it comes to classic ghost stories, we tend to think of Victorian authors like Poe or Dickens. But the modern world can be just as spooky - and full of unexplained phenomena - as Western author Craig Johnson suggests in his latest short novel, 'The Highwayman.”

Using Dickens' 'The Signal-Man” as inspiration, Johnson takes beloved sheriff Walt Longmire from his Longmire series into the Wind River Canyon to investigate a series of mysterious '10-78” calls: officer in distress. The calls come in at exactly 12:34 a.m., and the voice of the officer is unmistakable. It's Bobby Womack, the legendary Arapaho patrolman who died decades ago.

Walt and his best friend and colleague Henry Standing Bear will be familiar to long-time Longmire readers, but new readers shouldn't fret. While the first chapters are a bit of a flurry of characters, Johnson leans heavy on plot instead of past relationships, making it easy for new readers to connect with these old friends.

There are plenty of modern nods in this classic form story, with open discussions of mental health and a careful analysis of technology. But the fuel for the narrative comes from timeless elements of forbidden love, betrayal and good old-fashioned greed.

Johnson packs all this into a little novel so tight and spare it feels like reading a book for an earlier era: gone are the filler chapters so common in mystery novels today, the rambling side passages that do little to advance the plot. There's no romantic side story. No chapters dedicated to buddy cop antics. Just a pure story that would be right at home being told around a campfire: immediately engaging, filled with turns and surprises, with an ending that comes too soon.