Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett has been called to track down an elk that was injured by a car and has wandered off on its three remaining good legs onto the Double Diamond ranch property. Not a duty Pickett likes because he must put the animal out of its misery.
A serious spring snowstorm has pelted the Big Horn mountains and while the snow makes tracking the elk easy, the knee-thigh deep snow is a challenge. He finds the animal near a heavy pine forest and sees what appears to be a car partially hidden by the snow.
It’s a four-wheeler, well taken care of, with a U Wyoming parking sticker. The trail is still navigable, so Joe follows to see if the owner needs assistance. What he finds is a large windowless, metal shed, and the driver is half in/half out of a ventilation fan, dead from the fan blades. Takes some crime scene photo before a couple shots ring out. Nothing more.
Pickett returns to his truck and phones it into the sheriff. The next day, a crime scene unit finds nothing. No car, no victim. No tracks (more snow). Pickett gets a call from his boss in Cheyenne that Governor Colten Allen wants to see Pickett now, snow be damned. Joe goes and is told in no uncertain terms to cease and desist any further investigation into the death of this university professor.
The death of the prof leads to a series of tentacles that include his mother-in-law, Nate Romanowski (of course) and Geronimo, a fellow falconer from Colorado, daughter Sheridan and her sometime boyfriend (the son of the DD Ranch foreman), a loosely knit clan of conspiracy theorists/secessionists and associated dirtbags, the FBI, former Governor Rulon, and a disabled FBI agent roaming around in an RV.
Yeah, convoluted.
But Box is a seasoned pro and he tells his tale with all the skill and grace we expect from him. His easy way of weaving a story is comfortable for his devotees, including the boys here at MRB.
Box is consistently a winner; another 5-star outing. If you’ve never read him, start anywhere. While there is some order to his books, most any can be a standalone. And if you haven’t been aware, Paramount+ streams a Joe Pickett series, the first season came out in 2021. Nice to watch if so you can put faces to the characters as you read.
Thanks to NetGalley for the advance reader copy. Available 28 Feb 2023.
And for anyone out there taking notice, this represents our 1500th post to this blog.
East Coast Don
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