Helpful Score: 1
I've been a big fan of C.J. Box for years now and I have read everything he has written. His Joe Pickett novels have been great but I must say I was somewhat disappointed with his latest effort, STORM WATCH. The story has Joe out tracking a wounded elk in the middle of a snowstorm when he comes upon a dead body near a mysterious structure on a ranch. The dead man turns out to be a professor at the University of Wyoming. The man is also Chinese. So what was he doing out in the snow at the structure that housed millions in computers and was used to mine Crypto Currency? Joe also was shot at near this site, but who did it and why? Turns out there are a group of elk antler poachers that may also have been responsible for the Chinese man's death.
Okay, the first part of this novel was rather intriguing but then it went downhill for me when the conservative politics of the west came into play. The book makes it sound like everyone in Wyoming is against the shutdown of oil pipelines and oil production and feels climate change is a hoax. Politicians, government officials, and environmentalists are all scorned by Box in his plot. The story really devolves when the FBI is involved in a plot to show that there are domestic terrorists called the "Sovereign Nation" who are part of a plot to kidnap or kill the Governor of Wyoming. But the FBI is really manufacturing the whole thing for their benefit.
I didn't really like the idea of the FBI being the bad guys here in a plot involving Chinese communists, the Wyoming Governor, and orchestrated by an East coast politician. I wish Box would go back to his earlier plot methods and leave the politics out of his novels. I'll probably read his next Pickett story but my interest seems to be lagging.
Okay, the first part of this novel was rather intriguing but then it went downhill for me when the conservative politics of the west came into play. The book makes it sound like everyone in Wyoming is against the shutdown of oil pipelines and oil production and feels climate change is a hoax. Politicians, government officials, and environmentalists are all scorned by Box in his plot. The story really devolves when the FBI is involved in a plot to show that there are domestic terrorists called the "Sovereign Nation" who are part of a plot to kidnap or kill the Governor of Wyoming. But the FBI is really manufacturing the whole thing for their benefit.
I didn't really like the idea of the FBI being the bad guys here in a plot involving Chinese communists, the Wyoming Governor, and orchestrated by an East coast politician. I wish Box would go back to his earlier plot methods and leave the politics out of his novels. I'll probably read his next Pickett story but my interest seems to be lagging.
Helpful Score: 1
Well...I'm mostly dissatisfied, although I didn't actually hate it. It felt very cartoon-ish, like the Scooby Gang was just around the corner. I thought the two different plots didn't mesh very well (c'mon, Bitcoin mining is helpful to the environment? because capped gas wells?), and I don't see why Missy had to be there except to satisfy the fans. The scenery descriptions are always good and the snowstorm bits were excellent, Box always does that very well. No horses died this time. I can see that, given where he lives and works, Joe Pickett is going to increasingly come into contact with insurrectionists, and there's an awful lot of plots (pun intended) that can come out of that. But I don't love how Box continues to work in every time how government people are always stupid, incompetent, or involved in massive conspiracies to take over the West. And...well, unfortunately I have a lot of minor gripes, and not many likes this time. I own the whole series except this one, but I was disappointed in the last book too, and now Box is a library read for me. That is, if I even bother - I'll read some reviews before I try another.
