Craig Johnson discusses Tooth and Claw

Although it was release day for Craig Johnson’s Tooth and Claw, he started out his program at The Poisoned Pen by asking the crowd to greet his wife, Judy, in Wyoming. I don’t know if he was rubbing it in that Wyoming is having snow as compared to the weather in Arizona. Johnson talks about the novella, set in Alaska, and said he started it about five years ago. You’ll enjoy his discussion below. You can order a signed copy of Tooth and Claw through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4hWku9a.

Here’s the description of Tooth and Claw.

In the tradition of Wait for Signs and The Highwayman, Craig Johnson is back with a short novel set in the Alaska tundra where a young Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear face off with powerful enemies who will do anything to get what they want.

Tooth and Claw follows Walt and Henry up to Alaska as they look for work after they both returned from serving in Vietnam. While working for an oil company in the bitter cold of winter, they soon encounter a ferocious polar bear who seems hell-bent on their destruction. But it’s not too long until they realize the danger does not lurk outside in the frozen Alaskan tundra, but with their co-workers who are after priceless treasure and will stop at nothing to get it.

Fans of Longmire will thrill to this pulse-pounding and bone-chilling novel of extreme adventure that adds another indelible chapter to the great story of Walt Longmire.


Craig Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of the Longmire mysteries, the basis for the hit Netflix original series Longmire. He is the recipient of the Western Writers of America Spur Award for fiction and the Mountain & Plains Independent Booksellers Association’s Reading the West Book Award for fiction. His novella Spirit of Steamboat was the first One Book Wyoming selection. He lives in Ucross, Wyoming, population 26.


Enjoy the video as Craig Johnson talks about Tooth and Claw, Alistair MacLean, and post-Vietnam adventures for Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear.