Off the Grid by C.J. Box

In book number sixteen of his Joe Pickett, Wyoming game warden series, C.J. Box writes more of a thriller than a mystery and incorporates the antics of Nate Romananski, a kind of anarchist outlaw into the plot.  Nate is living in hiding (off the grid) on a friend’s Wyoming ranch with his latest girlfriend when he has a dream of terrorists in three white pickup trucks attacking him in the desert.  There to defend him is his old pal, Joe Pickett.  Nate doesn’t understand the dream or even know what desert he is in and hasn’t seen Joe in some time.  The next day some men from an unknown government agency find Nate and offer him a chance to expunge his legal record.  All he has to do is go to the Red Desert in south central Wyoming and locate a Saudi born person of interest, thought to be planning an attack against the United States.  Iggy, the perpetrator, is a known falconer and Nate can use his falcons as cover for his presence there.  Nate has no interest is cooperating with the feds but he knows his girlfriend who has gone to Louisiana to visit her mother will be in danger if he denies his services.

Meanwhile, Joe Picket is dealing with a rogue grizzly bear problem.  Grizzly bear interactions with humans have become more common in Wyoming and the State has attached GPS collars to a few grizzlies to monitor their mobility.  Interestingly they have found a grizzly bear can travel as much as two thousand miles in a season and has been observed surveilling some hunters without them knowing it.  Now one of the bears has attacked and killed a hunter and Joe has to track him down.

But just as Joe is getting organized, the Governor calls on Joe for a mission of his own.  Governor Rulon has a deal with Joe to make himself available for the occasional special assignment.  In this case, Governor Rulon has gotten wind of the deal Nate Rowananski has made with the feds and wants Joe to go to the Red Desert, find Nate, and report the nature of the activity in the desert.  The Wyoming governor has ongoing jurisdictional battles with all Federal agencies.

Coincidently, the grizzly Joe was tracking appears to be headed to the Red Desert as well.  And even more coincidently, Joe’s daughter Sheridan happens to be camping in the Red Desert this very weekend with her college roommate.  Middle Eastern terrorists, a killer grizzly bear, Nate Romananski, and Joe Pickett all in the largely uninhabited Wyoming Red Desert at the same time… this can’t end peaceably… and it doesn’t.

Off the Grid is C.J. Box’s best yet.  The combination of Nate who always finds trouble and Joe who always has trouble finding him, makes for more adventure, action, and suspense than most Joe Pickett novels.  I had the privilege of hearing the author talk last week at a library book signing event.  His latest news is that he has cancelled the project with Sundance Productions to turn his Joe Pickett series into film.  He decided they were changing his Joe character too much so as Box put it, "I fired Robert Redford."