Helpful Score: 4
This is the tenth Joe Pickett book and it does not disappoint. Joe is finishing his last week of "exile" in a remote part of south central Wyoming and against his better judgment, he heads into the mountains to investigate various complaints of poaching, tent slashings, cabin break-ins etc. Joe finds out quite quickly that he is in over his head with no back-up and things go from bad to worse. The book is a fast read but I would caution against reading too quickly. Box is a master story teller and he weaves so much imagery into his prose that it would be a shame to miss it. There are passages describing the Great West that are sublime. This book is filled with action but the good guys and bad guys are difficult to tell apart sometimes and the writing is exemplary. This isn't a mindless "shoot -em up" story. There is a bit of depth that can be hard to find in the typical mystery/thrillers that are published today. This one is highly recommended but do yourself a favor and begin at the beginning. It's a good place to start.
Helpful Score: 1
Short and too the point----great series! I love the Joe Pickett family and all the problems they work through together and their friend Nate and the self-centered mom-in-law--start from the first book to get the full set of adventures in this family life.
C.J. Box writes a taut tale that will never fail the reader in any way. Joe Picket and his friend Nate Romanowski( A wonderful, strong mysterious character)butt heads in this book.
Joe is a Game Warden, Nate is a secret opp ,walked away from a nasty mission.
Pick up any book by C;J. box and you will be hooked for life.
Joe is a Game Warden, Nate is a secret opp ,walked away from a nasty mission.
Pick up any book by C;J. box and you will be hooked for life.
Well written. I enjoyed the suspense and characters. Joe Pickett and his family are great but I really enjoy Nate Romanowski.
The main plot of this Joe Pickett novel was very good. It was suspenseful and fast paced. I would give it 4.5 stars. However the subplots involving his kids and mother-in-law are stale and boring. It seems Box involves them as filler for his story so he can get at least 350 pages out. Another criticism is the continued reliance on Nate Romanowski to bail Pickett out of every jam. Then there is the standard meme of Pickett as the lone honest man fighting against the corrupt bureaucracy without a friend in the world (other than Nate). If no one in the state of Wyoming likes the man then maybe there's a reason we shouldn't like him either. Box constructs an interesting anf fun plot but he really needs to work on the characters and relationships involved in the plot. I'll continue to read this series, however, and I give the book 3.99 stars overall.
Excellent series.
The 10th book in this series and just as awesome as
the previous nine.
the previous nine.
Although this is the tenth book in the series, I think it is my favorite so far. Joe is just coming off a years banishment in Baggs, WY. There is just one more thing he needs to check...a series of mysterious happenings in the mountains. Some people think it is caused by a Wendigo, an old Indian legend. And what about the runner who disappeared two years ago? What he encounters are the Grim Brothers, a pair of twins on the run from MI, who escaped from a protection program. And they have no intentions of going home. As Joe finds out when he is attacked, wounded by gunshot and shot with an arrow. Can Joe, with help from his friend Nate survive a second attempt to find them?
Joe Pickett just seems to have a knack for getting in over his head! This was another enjoyable entry in the series where Joe heads into the mountains to try to find out who has been damaging camps and unlawfully butchering elk before he leaves his temporary post in Baggs, Wyoming. What he runs into is very unsettling -- a pair of seemingly demented twins who have taken refuge in the mountains. Joe is lucky to get away with his life after having being shot with an arrow and having his horses butchered. But when he wakes up in the hospital, there are many unanswered questions including who was the strange woman who was living in a cabin in the mountains close to the twins? And who really are the twins and why is the FBI hiding their identity. Well, Joe ends up going back into the mountains but this time he takes along Nate Romanowski, the former government agent who is still wanted by the FBI. In the end the reasons are all made clear... Another high recommendation for this one!
It's Joe Pickett's last week as a temporary game warden in the mountain town of Baggs, Wyoming, but his conscience won't let him leave without checking out the strange reports coming from the wilderness: camps looted, tents slashed, elk butchered. What awaits him is like something out of an old campfire tale, except this story is all too real-and all too deadly.
Tenth in the series; you could start here easily. Once again Box writes a real page-turner. It really starts out in high gear with Joe encountering murderous brothers who have him on the run in the wilderness, wounded and desperate. I can't fault the action. Box usually manages to show both sides of many controversies in the West - development, mining, hunting and so forth. I am usually willing to suspend disbelief when I'm in Joe Pickett's world, and I did zip righ through this book, but...it missed the mark for me. At the end Box has Nate and Joe feeling sorry for the murderers, because a crooked politician and the government did something bad. Well, no, I'm sorry - after what they did they don't get a pass just because they'd like to be left alone. So it left a bad taste. OTOH, Nate is still roaming free, and we like him...oh well. For those who cringe when animals are killed in books, Joe loses two horses in a gruesome fashion.
Excellent Read.
exceptional 2012
