Cold Wind

This is the 11^th in the 12-book series (so far) about Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett. It’s also the 11^th C. J. Box novel reviewed in this blog, reviewed by all three of us who favor fiction, so that ought to give you a clue about his standing at MRB. This is another excellent story, which in the process of unfolding the plot of a very curious crime, also furthers the character development of Joe Pickett, his wife Marybeth, their daughters, friend and outlaw Nate Romanowski, mother-in-law Missy Vankueren Longbrake Alden, Sheriff Kyle McLanahan, and other denizens of Twelve Sleep County.

Earl Alden is Missy’s fifth husband, so Earl is the next in a series of father-in-law’s for Joe Pickett. Missy, a gold digger of remarkable determination, has traded up with each marriage, finally arriving at a station of life that she had long sought, the ranch wife of the biggest ranch in all of northern Wyoming. Her fifth husband’s wealth is massive, and his murder is unexpected. Earl was out riding the range one morning to look at the massive solar turbine wind farm that he was financing on his own ranch land when he was shot in the chest. His body was discovered tied to one of the blades of a turbine spinning slowly, the centrifugal force doing ugly things to his bodily fluids. When it is discovered that he was in the process of filing for divorce from the bitch he had married, the suspicion all turned towards Missy. But, how could a small and older woman pulled off such a crime? Missy promptly hired Marcus Hand, a hotshot internationally known criminal lawyer from Jackson Hole (surely Box’s take on the very real Wyoming cowboy lawyer Gerry Spence). The stress of supporting her dysfunctional mother through a murder trial sorely tested Marybeth’s relationship with Joe.

Box successfully ties together a number of subplots including Nate’s love Alisha Whiteplume, the Chicago mob, and more. Joe Pickett maintains his unyielding ethos, like so many of the protagonists favored by the blog. This book ended with some very clever plot twists that I did not see coming. If you haven’t yet read a C. J. Box novel, even though these could be stand-alone novels, it’s best to start at the beginning with Open Season.