'Longmire' premieres on A&E

Longmire's trusty lieutenant, Victoria "Vic" Moretti (Katee Sackhoff) is helping him in this tough time, and so is his close pal Henry Standing Bear (Lou Diamond Phillips). There is competition for his job, however -- devious Branch Connally (Bailey Chase) is running for county sheriff.

On Sunday night, a body turns up in the mountains with a bullet in the back. Whodunit?

Johnson, who lives in Wyoming, described his hero in a press interview some years ago this way: "I assembled him, to a certain extent, from a lot of my experiences . . . in law enforcement. I basically tried to engender a sheriff that embodied all the best qualities of police work that I could think of: compassion, intelligence, dogged determination, and strong sense of right and wrong."

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Taylor's Longmire is a bigger mystery than the mysteries he has to solve. Like Tony Hillerman's Jim Chee/Joe Leaphorn series, the West takes a starring role here (the pilot was filmed in New Mexico where Hillerman's series is set). Indians -- not referred to here as "Native Americans" -- do as well. A genuine love of the land and those who call it home is reflected.