Blood Trail (Joe Pickett Novels) | C. J. Box | For anyone who likes mysteries

Blood Trail (Joe Pickett Novels) | C. J. Box | Best one yet

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Blood Trail (Joe P...

	Blood Trail (Joe Pickett Novels) C. J. Box Putnam Adult, 2008 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 21 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Award-winning writer C. J. Box returns with a vengeance in this thrilling new novel featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett.

It?s elk season in the Rockies, but this year a different kind of hunter is stalking a different kind of prey. When the call comes in on the radio, Joe Pickett can hardly believe his ears: game wardens have found a hunter dead at a camp in the mountains?strung up, gutted, and flayed, as if he were the elk he?d been pursuing. A spent cartridge and a poker chip lie next to his body.

Ripples of horror spread through the community, and with a possibly psychotic killer on the loose Governor Rulon is forced to end the hunting season early for the first time in state history. Are the murders the work of a deranged antihunting activist or of a lone psychopath with a personal vendetta?

As always, Joe Pickett is the governor?s go-to man, and he?s put on the case to track the murderous hunter, as more bodies and poker chips turn up.

Bold, fast-paced, and with a controversial hook?hunting versus antihunting activists?Blood Trail is proof that C. J. Box is an ever-rising talent.

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For anyone who likes mysteries

It's a good year indeed when we are blessed with two books by C. J. Box. The stand-alone work BLUE HEAVEN was published early in 2008 and garnered a hint of the commercial success that Box has deserved since he first began setting pen to paper with OPEN SEASON. The newly released BLOOD TRAIL, his latest Joe Pickett novel, provides a point for jumping onto the series for those readers who have yet to become acquainted with this addicting character.

Pickett's appeal is his fallibility. He is competent, capable, dogged and determined. But his seeming penchant for accidentally destroying government vehicles (he averages about one a year) has earned him the enmity of his former boss, Randy Pope, when he was a state game warden and was one of many reasons why he was fired from that position. At the same time, Pickett is extraordinarily lucky. For one thing, he's still alive, still married to a wonderful woman, and, thanks to the somewhat vague reasoning of Wyoming governor Spencer Rulon, still employed by the state.

Rulon is a crusty, eccentric customer who is used to shooting from the hip and aiming with instinct. He has appointed Pickett to a special position as a game warden at large in Wyoming, reporting only to the governor's office. On a rare day off, Pickett is called in to investigate the grisly murder of a hunter whose body is found field dressed and mounted at a mountain camp. The investigation throws Pickett together with Pope, his former boss and eternal nemesis, as well as Phil Kiner, the man who replaced Pickett as the game warden of the Saddlestring District.

As the men make an uneasy, and not always successful, attempt to maintain a civil relationship during the course of their investigation, it slowly becomes clear that whoever is responsible for the hunter's murder is also to blame for two other hunting deaths that had been classified as accidents. When Rulon ends hunting season early, chaos erupts in a state that is heavily dependent upon hunting revenues for its livelihood. To make matters worse, a radical environmentalist who champions anti-hunting initiatives appears in the state and begins conducting efforts that actually encourage the killer.

Pickett's investigation leads him to believe that there is an invisible link that joins the murdered hunters, but is doubly surprised to find that the murder victims are connected to a case from his own past and to that of his enigmatic friend Nate Romanowski. As the mysterious killer, who seemingly has the ability to hide in plain sight, continues the string of murders, Pickett embarks on a dangerous and ultimately deadly course to see that justice, however roughly, is done. By the time BLOOD TRAIL concludes, Pickett's life and circumstances are forever and irrevocably changed.

C. J. Box, to put it simply, is a marvelous author, worth reading and keeping for every book, every word, that he writes. It appears that the under-appreciation he and his quietly stunning work have received to date may be coming to an end. If he has escaped your notice prior to now, read BLOOD TRAIL and set aside a few weeks to catch up on his past novels. You will marvel at his wordcraft and characterization, while rabidly anticipating what is to come.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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Best one yet

C J Box is a favorite author of mine. I can't wait for each book. His characters seem real and are like people you would like to know. He just keeps getting better and better.

Another hit for C. J. Box

This is the latest in a series about Joe Pickett, game warden. Probably not the best of the series, but still worthwhile. Do wish he had spent more time on the family members as in previous books, especially concerning Joe's mother-in-law. You aren't meant to like her, but I was wondering what her current husband was going to do about her 'wandering'. Joe's daughters, Sheridan and Lucy had little space in the book as did his wife. Seemed like they were there just to support Joe. Usually they play a larger role in the role.

At any rate, the book had the usual violence and Joe gets the bad guy, even though he gets no joy from solving the crimes.

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Not up to Joe Pickett's Standards

Unfortunately for Joe, C.J. Box seems to be lost somewhere in the Bighorns searching for plausible and realistic plots. Joe is an interesting character whose development has been stifled and even somewhat emasculated by the author. And unfortunately Nate's appearance does little to highten the plot line. A very disappointing read.

Long Set-up - Quick Ending

I long to live out west, so I am drawn to Joe Pickett novels. However, I generally find Box's novels to be good in the set-up, but rather uneventful in the climax. This one was no different. The set-up was disappointed by the ending.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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