BLOOD TRAIL: A Joe Pickett Novel
C. J. Box
Putnam Adult
Mystery
ISBN: 9780399154881

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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