Wyoming Books: The Best Books Set in the Cowboy State

Book Summary

Published in 2004, this is the first in a series of 19 books in the Walt Longmire Mysteries series. Sheriff Walt Longmire thinks his 25-year tenure in Wyoming is winding down when a young man is found at the edge of the Cheyenne reservation. Was his death payback for the assault of a young Cheyenne girl two years earlier? Throughout the series, you’ll see Longmire’s investigations and relationships with lifelong friend Henry Standing Bear and Deputy Victoria Moretti. 

This is a sequential series of modern westerns, with each book building on the others and filling in gaps, so it’s ideal to read this series in order. However, each book is also a standalone mystery, and the author provides enough character background to make every installment work as a standalone if necessary.

Book Summary

Iowa teacher Ellen is looking for a new adventure when she accepts a job as the only teacher in the tiny western town of Wallace, Wyoming. When she arrives, it’s more barren and poverty-stricken than Ellen anticipated. It quickly becomes clear why the previous teachers never lasted more than a year.

However, by the end of Ellen’s first year, she’s fallen in love with the High Plains and with a cowboy named Charlie. However, their love can’t stop the harsh conditions of the Wild West, from winter blizzards to unrelenting summer heat. To survive, the women of the town must look out for each other.

Book Summary

Clementine “Emmy” Ryder wanted nothing more than to leave the small town she grew up in. She went to college and then made a career for herself riding horses, but an accident made it impossible for her to get back in the saddle. Now she has no choice but to return home to Meadowlark.

Luke Brooks is her older brother’s best friend. He grew up as the unofficial fifth member of Emmy’s household, and he spent his childhood antagonizing her. But now that she’s back, she now longer has little sister vibes. He can’t take his eyes of of her.

Romance is the last thing on Emmy’s mind, and Luke knows he should stay away from his best friend’s sister. But what if he’s the one person who can bring her spark back? Or will they both go up in flames?

Book Summary

Celine is a 68-year-old private investigator and artist who works out of her apartment at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. She’s elegant and aristocratic, and she’s made a career of tracking down missing persons and reuniting families.

A young woman named Gabriela seeks Celine’s help to discover the truth about her father, Paul, a famed wildlife photographer who went missing decades ago near the Montana-Wyoming border. It’s been assumed that Paul died from a grizzly attack, but his body was never found. Gabriela wants answers. When Celine and her husband, Pete, head to Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park to investigate, it soon becomes clear that they are being followed and that someone does not want them to reopen this case.

Book Summary

This is the first book in the Joe Pickett series, which is still ongoing with book 25 published on February 25, 2025. All the books focus on a Wyoming game warden.

In Open Season, Joe is a new game warden in Twelve Sleep, Wyoming. Because everyone in town hunts and Joe won’t take any bribes to circumvent the rules, he’s not popular.

When a local hunting outfitter is found dead behind Joe’s home, he takes it personally and isn’t convinced by the explanation offered by the local police. His own investigation brings up more complications than expected, including the discovery of an endangered species that will threaten the plans of an oil company.

Book Summary

Brokeback Mountain tells the story of two ranch hands who first meet while working on a range one summer. Their attraction to one another is casual at first, but eventually grows deeper. Both marry and have kids – “because that’s what cowboys do” – but as they reunite time and again over the years, their relationship becomes the most important thing in their lives. This is a dangerous affair for two cowboys in a violent and intolerant world.

Book Summary

Elizabeth “E.M.” Danniher was a TV journalist who made two mistakes. The first is that she didn’t stay young forever. The second is that she made an enemy of a powerful news executive (a.k.a. her ex-husband). She was once the reporter who covered national breaking news, but these days, she’s now stuck reporting on small-town news in Sherman, Wyoming, where not much happens. That is, until the local deputy sheriff dies and everyone is a suspect.