Three-Inch Teeth

Fresh from reading too many WWII fiction and nonfiction books, I dove into the new Joe Pickett novel, the 24^th in the series. With Three-Inch Teeth, C.J. Box has done it again. I’m most surprised the Midwest Dave didn’t beat me to writing the review on the book. He’s the person who introduced me and East Coast Don to Box’s novels, and we are forever grateful for that. 

Box has written a thriller that I could not put down until it was over, avoiding all other vacation responsibilities. This novel opened with a breathtaking grizzly bear attack on Clay Hutmacher, Jr., a 25-year-old man who was flyfishing by himself in a remote area while also carrying the diamond ring that he planned to use as he proposed marriage to Sheridan Pickett. Clay did not survive the lightning-fast brutal attack, and it was the first of other grizzly attacks that were happening around the state of Wyoming.

 

Sheridan, as a getaway from the funeral scene in her home town of Saddlestring, Wyoming, took advantage of an opportunity to go on her first solo job for Nate Romanowski’s company Yarak, Inc. She had attained the status of master falconer and was off to do a job on bird abatement. The job was just across the state line in Colorado. To say the least, the people who hired her were very odd. Nate had gone legitimate with his company, and he lived with his wife Liv and their 2-year-old daughter Kestrel.

 

There were parts of the bear attacks that did not make sense, such as the distance between the attacks and some other not-bear-like behaviors which Box explains carefully. In the course of this novel, Box brings back some former foes of Joe and Nate, like Dallas Cates who had just been released from prison, and Axel Soledad. Both Cates and Soledad were psychopaths. There’s another big surprise discovered by Sheridan, but I won’t spoil that for you.

 

This is an A+ and 5/5 rated novel. C.J. Box does keep this series interesting, and he left us with a guess about where the Pickett saga will continue.