Walter Longmire is a fictional character created by American author Craig Johnson (b. 1961).
Longmire is the title character of Walt Longmire Mysteries, a series of western mystery novels first published in 2004. The novels were adapted into Longmire, a crime drama television series which premiered in 2012 and was developed by John Coveny and Hunt Baldwin. Longmire is portrayed by Australian actor Robert Taylor.
Walt Longmire Mysteries
Fictional biography Walt is a native of Durant, Wyoming, the county seat of fictional Absaroka County, named after the real-life Absaroka Native Americans, the Absaroka Range, and the 1930s effort to declare a U.S. state called Absaroka out of territory from three existing states.
Longmire attended the University of Southern California, where he played offensive lineman for the USC Trojans and graduated with a degree in English literature. He then served in the Marine Corps and completed boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and Officer Candidates School at Marine Corps Base Quantico. He was assigned to the 1st Marine Division as a military police officer, and served in country at Tan Son Nhut Air Base during the Vietnam War. He served in the Marines for four years, and earned, among other decorations, the Navy Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart. After serving in Vietnam, Walt spent six weeks assigned as security at Johnston Atoll.
Upon his discharge from the Marines, Walt spent some time working at an oil rig in Anchorage, Alaska, before returning home to Wyoming, where he was hired by Sheriff Lucian Connally as a deputy sheriff in 1972. Walt was elected as the Absaroka County Sheriff after Lucian all but threw the race and decided to retire.
In the series In the first book, The Cold Dish, Walt is mentioned as having been the sheriff of Absaroka County and plans to run for re-election again the following year. He investigates the murders of two white teenagers who had been found guilty, but not severely punished, for raping a local Indian girl, Melissa Little Bird.
In Death Without Company, Walt investigates the death of a Basque woman who was, for a few hours in the 1940s, married to Lucian before her family had the marriage annulled. During his tenure as sheriff "of the least populated county in the least populated state in the union", five murders have occurred in Absaroka County, with three of them taking place since 2004 (in The Cold Dish and Death Without Company).
In Kindness Goes Unpunished, Walt visits his daughter Cady in Philadelphia, where he joins forces with the Philadelphia Police Department to investigate an assault on Cady that has left her in a coma.
In Another Man's Moccasins, Walt investigates the murder of a young Vietnamese woman, which reminds him of his first murder investigation – the death of a prostitute outside of Tan Son Nhut Air Base by an American officer in 1968.
In The Dark Horse, Walt goes undercover as an insurance investigator from Billings, Montana, in Campbell County, Wyoming (at the unofficial request of the Campbell County Sheriff), to determine if a woman truly murdered her husband, a man with a dubious past and a gift for making enemies, after he allegedly burned down their barn and killed their horses for the insurance money.
In Hell is Empty, Walt becomes lost in the Bighorn Mountains with a federal prisoner/serial killer. This book was later adapted into the Longmire season two episode "Unquiet Mind".
In As the Crow Flies, Walt assists the newly appointed chief of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation Tribal Police, Iraq War veteran Lolo Long, with the investigation into the death of a young woman who fell from a cliff with her child in her arms, while simultaneously preparing for Cady's wedding.
In A Serpent's Tooth, Walt deals with a multi-state polygamous cult when he tries to help a Mormon "lost boy" that leads to Big Oil, the Central Intelligence Agency, and a Mexican drug cartel, which ultimately costs the life of one of his deputies and the grievous injury of another.
In Spirit of Steamboat, Walt flashes back to Christmas Eve 1988 (during his second month as sheriff) when he helps Lucian and a World War II veteran of the 38th Bombardment Group transport an injured girl (the sole survivor of a car accident) from Durant to Denver during a snowstorm in a decommissioned North American B-25 Mitchell.
In Any Other Name, Walt investigates the suicide of a Campbell County Sheriff's Investigator at the request of Lucian and Sheriff Sandy Sandburg, which nearly causes him to miss the birth of his grandchild in Philadelphia.
In Dry Bones, Walt deals with the discovery of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton on Native American land within his county and the subsequent death of the property's owner, resulting in a joint investigation with the FBI under the scrutiny of the newly announced deputy United States attorney for the district of Wyoming. In the middle of the investigation, Walt learns that his son-in-law, Officer Michael Moretti, was killed in the line of duty in Philadelphia; although he desperately wants to fly east and assist in the investigation, he remains stuck in Durant to complete his own case (however, he does allow Vic, Michael's sister, to take a leave of absence).
During his career, Walter becomes well-respected not only by his county but also by the Wyoming State Attorney General's Office (including the Attorney General, Joe Meyer, himself), the DCI, and even the Governor of Wyoming. It is later mentioned, somewhat jokingly, that if a police officer is murdered in Wyoming, Walt Longmire is on the case.
As sheriff, Walt carries an M1911A1 in .45 ACP (the same one he used in the Marine Corps) as his primary weapon, and drives a pickup truck that he calls the Silver Bullet (or just Bullet).
Relationships Walt is a widower; Martha, his wife, died of cancer (in the books; in the TV series she was murdered in Denver, Colorado, while suffering from cancer). With Martha, he had a daughter, Cady, who is now an attorney in Philadelphia. In As the Crow Flies, Walt mentions that he dated Martha before he was drafted, and that their relationship resumed after he came home from the war. The two eloped and were married by a justice of the peace in Miles City, Montana, when her father refused to pay for a big church wedding. In the same book, Cady marries Philadelphia Police Officer Michael Moretti, the brother of Walt's undersheriff, Vic Moretti, on the Rez; Michael and she had been seeing each other since Kindness Goes Unpunished and engaged since The Dark Horse. In Any Other Name, Cady gives birth to a daughter, Lola Longmire Moretti. In The Western Star, it is revealed that Walt and Martha first got pregnant in 1972, but they lost the baby in a first-trimester miscarriage.
Walt's closest friend and confidant is Henry Standing Bear. They have been friends since they were 12 years old, and both served in Vietnam (although Henry was a member of the United States Army Special Forces, while Walt was a Marine MP), where they were both highly decorated. When Cady was born, Walt appointed Henry her godfather.
After Cady is assaulted in Philadelphia, Vic (who was assisting the police in the investigation) and Walt have sex. In the aftermath, Walt mentions that he has had sex with only six women in his life. The two continue their relationship after returning to Durant; in A Serpent's Tooth, Walt learns from the doctor that Vic was pregnant, but lost the baby after being stabbed during the confrontation with Tomás Bidarte. As of Any Other Name, neither Walt nor Vic knows that the other is aware of the pregnancy, but in Dry Bones, Vic reveals that she knows Walt had been told.
Appearances To date, Walt has appeared in these books:
The Cold Dish – December 29, 2004 Death Without Company – March 16, 2006 Kindness Goes Unpunished – March 15, 2007 Another Man's Moccasins – May 26, 2009 The Dark Horse – May 25, 2010 Junkyard Dogs – October 22, 2010 Hell is Empty – October 7, 2011 Divorce Horse (eBook) – April 16, 2012 As the Crow Flies – May 15, 2012 Christmas in Absaroka County (eBook) – December 4, 2012 Messenger (eBook) – April 23, 2013 A Serpent's Tooth – June 4, 2013 Spirit of Steamboat – October 17, 2013 Any Other Name – May 13, 2014 Wait for Signs: Twelve Longmire Stories – October 21, 2014 Dry Bones – May 12, 2015 The Highwayman – May 17, 2016 An Obvious Fact – September 13, 2016 The Western Star – September 5, 2017 Depth of Winter - September 4, 2018 Land of Wolves - September 17, 2019 Next to Last Stand - September 22, 2020 Daughter of the Morning Star - September 21, 2021 Hell and Back - September 6, 2022 The Longmire Defense - September 5, 2023 First Frost - May 28, 2024 Tooth and Claw - Nov 19, 2024 Return to Sender - May 27, 2025
Longmire (TV series)
History Absaroka County native Walt Longmire is the well-respected sheriff that resides there. When the series begins, it is believed by most that his wife, Martha Longmire, died of cancer.
His father was a rancher who managed the stables of Absaroka County's most wealthy family, the Van Blarcoms. He is a graduate of Durant High School Class of '71, and his football jersey still hangs in the school's trophy case.
In their 20s, he and Henry worked at Prudhoe Bay Oil Field in Alaska.
Walt has been the Sheriff of Absaroka County since at least 2005; his immediate predecessor was Sheriff Lucian Connally (Peter Weller), the uncle of Branch.
In 2010, Walt arrested Malachi Strand (Graham Greene), the Chief of the Cheyenne Reservation Tribal Police, for extortion; he also has an adversarial relationship with the current CRTP Chief, Mathias (Zahn McClarnon), although the two have a bond of mutual respect.
In the series Laconic and introspective with a strong sense of duty and justice, Walt is a throwback to the iconic lone hero of classical westerns. He is an able detective with a knack for finding the truth behind various crimes committed in his county.
As the series starts in 2012, Walt is slowly coming out of a deep grieving period where he delegated most of the day-to-day police duties to Deputies Branch Connally (Bailey Chase), Archie "The Ferg" Ferguson (Adam Bartley), and Victoria "Vic" Moretti (Katee Sackhoff). This is complicated by Branch running against Walt in the upcoming sheriff election.
Walt is investigated by Denver PD Detective Fales (Charles S. Dutton) for the murder of Miller Beck, a meth-head suspected of murdering Walt's wife, Martha. It is revealed that Fales is pushing the case of Beck, a drug-using suspected mugger and killer, so hard because of Fales' own experience with a small-town sheriff, whose racism and abuse of authority left Fales with a deep distrust of those particular law enforcement officers. It is eventually revealed that Walt's best friend Henry Standing Bear hired Cheyenne mercenary Hector to take care of Beck, but Hector didn't kill him. Throughout the third season, Henry is facing murder charges in Beck's death, but Walt realizes that his deputy Branch Connally's nemesis David Ridges, recently killed in a struggle with Walt, is actually the killer. Using forensic evidence recovered from Beck's body and Ridges' car, Walt is able to clear Henry's name and prove that Ridges was the true killer. In the aftermath, Branch is murdered by his own father after learning that the man had hired Ridges to kill Martha in order to give Branch an advantage in his ultimately failed run for sheriff.