I don’t know when I’ve felt this cold while reading. Craig Johnson’s atmospheric tale is a chiller. TOOTH AND CLAW is set in the Arctic night, on the sea ice which sits on the Beaufort Sea.

This adventure carries the subtitle A Longmire Story because it features Sheriff Walt Longmire before he was a lawman in Wyoming. He tells a yarn to some friends about the time he and his good pal Henry Standing Bear, sometimes nicknamed the Cherokee Nation, were in Alaska. Thus, you don’t need to have read earlier books in the popular Walt Longmire crime series.

Walt Longmire was employed in Alaska by an oil company after his return from Vietnam, in 1970. He’s still trying to readjust to life, and the all-male oil rigger environment suits him. Some of the crew are pushed too far by the harsh environment, so he is required to go out in person as security for an expedition. They are based near Nuiqsut, in the North Slope Borough of Alaska, and the U.S. Geological Survey needs to drill some ice core samples. For that, they need protection from polar bears.  

The biggest land carnivore, one of the few that stalks humans and isn’t much afraid of them, will definitely be out there, getting hungry in the long polar winter. While bears are mainly solitary, they cover a vast territory. Near the sea ice is a potential spot for catching seals, so another rifle shooter called Blackjack is with the party specifically to deter or kill bears. The other members are scientists or expedition logistics crew, some with personal agendas. As you can tell from the dramatic cover, bears feature, but even aside from that, all does not go smoothly.

The lesson we could take from Craig Johnson is that despite all reasonable preparations, it doesn’t take much for something to go wrong, and in an extreme environment, anything being wrong can kill you. Fast. In the bitter cold and darkness of the Arctic Circle, help may be too far away to be of any use; and it may not be able to reach you.

A tremendous fun asset is a “ghost ship,” the SS Baychimo, which has made mysterious appearances since the 1930s. I greatly enjoyed the novella-length read, which hardly pauses its desperate action, only delivering concise information about the setting, before the appearance of yet another threat. TOOTH AND CLAW are the most visible dangers out here, but certainly not the only ones. Now I’m going to have to read something warmer.