内容摘要：A member of the kitchen crew of an expedition to the summit of Mount Everest collects ice for drinking water at Camp 1, Nepal, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Pasang Rinzee Sherpa)

A member of the kitchen crew of an expedition to the summit of Mount Everest collects ice for drinking water at Camp 1, Nepal, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Pasang Rinzee Sherpa)

Her disappearance is odd, not just because McGowan has always been reliable but because her personal delivery vehicle, a 1968 International Travelall that looks like a hearse and has a quarter of a million miles on it, was left behind.Authorities in Sweetwater County haven’t made any progress, so Mike Thurman, the postal inspector, asks Walt Longmire, sheriff of (fictional) Absaroka County, to find her. The desert is way out of Longmire’s jurisdiction, but Thurman is family on the sheriff’s wife’s side, so he agrees.

So begins “Return to Sender,”22nd installment in a series that inspired a TV show that ran for 6 seasons on A&E and Netflix.Given the size of the desert and the length of time McGowan has been missing, Longmire puts his chances as “not likely.” Going undercover as a postal worker, which fools nobody, he and his dog named Dog head off into the desert in the ancient Travelall and follow the woman’s delivery route.

Johnson is known for creating memorable characters, and perhaps the most memorable this time is Dog, a German Shepherd-Saint Bernard mix who is as smart and loyal as they come. The Travelall emerges as something of a character in its own right, with its quirks and an odd body shape plastered with Flower Power, Grateful Dead, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and Age of Aquarius stickers.Eventually, Longmire discovers McGowan in the clutches of a weird-as-they-come religious cult, shoots it out with its gun-toting members, and commits several remarkable acts of heroism.

Near the middle of the story, the author inserts characters and elements from a previous novel that might confuse newcomers to the series. Fortunately, that section, which hints at what may be coming in the next instalment, is short.

Johnson’s plot is suspenseful and fast-moving, the prose is tight, and the landscape is vividly drawn.“I would remember,” Cera deadpans. “I would never have passed up the opportunity.”

“The Phoenician Scheme,” which Focus Features releases Friday in theaters, stars Benicio del Toro as the international tycoon Zsa-zsa Korda, who after a lifetime of swindling and exploiting has decided to make his daughter, a novitiate named Liesl (Mia Threapleton), the heir to his estate.Cera plays Liesl’s Norwegian tutor Bjørn Lund. And because of the strong leading performances, you couldn’t quite say Cera steals the show, he’s certainly one of the very best things about “The Phoenician Scheme” — and that’s something for a movie that includes Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston playing a game of HORSE. Bjørn is an entomologist, which means Cera spends a sizable portion of the movie in a bow tie with an insect gently poised on his finger.

“He is sort of a bug, himself,” Cera, speaking in an interview at the Cannes Film Festival shortly beforesays with a wry smile. “And he sheds his skin and becomes his truth self.”