"Any Other Name" by Craig Johnson

Sheriff Walt Longmire is sinking into a high-plains winter discontent when his former boss, Lucian Connally, asks him to take on a mercy case outside his jurisdiction. Detective Gerald Holman of neighboring Campbell County is dead, and Lucian wants to know what drove his old friend, a by-the-book lawman with a wife and daughter, to take his own life. With the clock ticking on the birth of Walt’s first grandchild in Philadelphia, he enlists the help of undersheriff Vic Moretti, Henry Standing Bear, and Gillette policeman Corbin Dougherty and, looking for answers, reopens Holman’s last case.

Before his mysterious death, Detective Holman was elbow-deep in a cold case involving three local women who’d gone missing with nothing to connect the disappearances—or so it seemed. The detective’s family and the Campbell County sheriff’s office beg Walt to drop the case. An open-and-shut suicide they say. But there’s a blood trail too hot to ignore, and it’s leading Walt in circles: from a casino in Deadwood, to a mysterious lodge in the snowy Black Hills of South Dakota, to a band of international hit men, to a shady strip club, and back again to the Campbell County sheriff’s office. Digging deeper, Walt will uncover a secret so dark it threatens to claim other lives before the sheriff can serve justice—Wyoming style. - from Amazon.com

This is book ten in the Walt Longmire series, that I fell in love with due to the television show (which is now in season three).  

This story brings Walt in helping out his friend, and former sheriff, Lucian Connally, on a case in a nearby county. Being tenacious as Walt is, he is swept up into the cause of a suicide of an officer, and his family, as he searches for the reason a "solid" officer would kill himself in such a mysterious way (for that officer). Also going on is Walt's daughter Cady, who is in Philidelphia, and is having a baby that she is demanding Walt be there for the birth of. Nothing like some pressure to get the case solved.

Brief appearances by Vic Morelli and Henry Standing-Bear help fill in part of the story, but most of it seems to be Walt following the trail as it leads into the lives and happenstances of three missing women. 

I enjoyed the previous novels quite a bit, but felt a bit let-down on this one. It read more like a possible script for a tv show, than the writing style Johnson showed in his other Longmire stories. Still a decent read, but felt it was a bit more forced to have some more internal struggle in Walt, though he has always been a pitbull when on a case, and always sought true justice for a crime. I hope there will be more stories of Longmire, as I would like to see more develop between him and Vic, and more on Henry.

"Shadow Ops: Control Point" by Myke Cole

Army Officer. Fugitive. Sorcerer.

Across the country and in every nation, people are waking up with magical talents. Untrained and panicked, they summon storms, raise the dead, and set everything they touch ablaze.
Army officer Oscar Britton sees the worst of it. A lieutenant attached to the military's Supernatural Operations Corps, his mission is to bring order to a world gone mad. Then he abruptly manifests a rare and prohibited magical power, transforming him overnight from government agent to public enemy number one.

The SOC knows how to handle this kind of situation: hunt him down--and take him out. Driven into an underground shadow world, Britton is about to learn that magic has changed all the rules he's ever known, and that his life isn't the only thing he's fighting for. - from Amazon.com

This book was a bit of a surprise to me. I had originally picked it up mainly because I saw the author 'hung out' with several authors I had read and enjoyed, on social media. I figured he must write similar stories. I was a bit wrong, but in a totally good way!

This is the first of at least three books by Cole, that tell a story about an alternate Earth. One where we are in a modern day setting, that has had a connection to an alternate dimension that contains "magic". Somehow this magic shows up as abilities in humans to control different things such as elementals (fire, water, air, etc), manipulate the dead, create portals, etc. In an attempt to control people with these 'Latent" powers, the U.S. creates a special army, called the SOC, to enforce laws made regarding the use of magic, etc. I don't want to spend much time breaking that all done.

In book one, we find Oscar Britton, who is in the Army with no magical skill, on a joint mission with the SOC to take down a couple teens that had manifested powers and were on a rampage. Immediately following the take-down, Britton shows a latency for creating portals, a rare form of magic in humans. Portals that open into this alternate shadow world. The SOC apprehend a Britton, while he is trying to flee.

Unknown to the regular world, the SOC have created a Forward Operating Base in this shadow world, where they train those new to this magic, and basically indoctrinate them into the SOC. The story follows Britton as he goes here, his personal battles about what is right/wrong not only with what he believes, but what the SOC is doing, and also follows his building of relationships with others at the FOB, and the indignant peoples, which are described as similar to goblins in look. 

Near the end of the book, the action comes to a head as Britton "escapes" the SOC FOB in the shadow world.

I don't want to share too much of the story, as you will enjoy the writing as I did. I am not into military-type fantasy novels as a rule, but this one just grabbed me up and took me for a ride. The writing was more simplistic and able to be understood (in regards to military terms/meanings/operations/rank) that I actually felt it was pretty much description in the story. Characters seemed to be well-built, though a bit predictable in how they would react, just not as to how. More military than fantasy? Nope! definitely a good mix of both.