TNT to Develop Series based on Craig Johnson's Sheriff Walt Longmire

Here's a news tidbit from a few days ago that we missed! Craig Johnson writes on the Penguin Blog that Warner Horizon Television and TNT are developing a crime drama based on his mystery series character, Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire.

When asked who he thought should play the tough but tender sheriff, Johnson, who has been retained as a creative consultant, replied, "Gary Cooper ... but he's not returning our calls."

We recently read our first Walt Longmire mystery, Junkyard Dogs, the sixth in the series, and were blown away, calling it "one of the year's best conceived and written, most entertaining mysteries." (Read our full review at Mysterious Reviews.) We think Walt Longmire would make for a terrific television series character.

About Junkyard Dogs (from the publisher): It's a volatile new economy in Durant, Wyoming, where the owners of a multi-million dollar development of ranchettes want to get rid of the adjacent junk-yard. When a severed thumb is discovered in the yard, conflicts erupt, and Walt Longmire, his trusty companion Dog, life-long friend Henry Standing Bear, and deputies Santiago Saizarbitoria and Victoria Moretti find themselves in a small town that feels more and more like a high plains pressure cooker.