C.J. Box |
This is one of my favorite series of thrillers. It's quite violent, but this is nicely balanced by Joe Pickett's reputation as being a "Dudley-Do-Right." Joe is a family man who seeks to make good decisions. His wife Marybeth, and daughters are main characters in the books.
Joe's best friend is an off-beat ex-Special Forces loner named Nate Romanowski. Nate is a falconer who seems to have a special relationship with nature and his birds. Only one of the books really veers into the paranormal, but it hovers around the edges of Nate's personality.
C.J. Box states that he started the series because he wanted to write Wyoming-based stories that genuinely portrayed the attitudes of people in that state.
The series begins with Joe as a rookie warden. He and the characters age and evolve. His children grow up, and his ever-the-nemesis mother-in-law becomes more and more outrageous in her quest for power and money.
I recommend the audio books, read by David Chandler. He is one of the best readers I've come across, and once you get his voicing for the characters in your head, you'll forever hear them when you read the books.
Recurring Characters:
Joe Pickett- Wyoming Game Warden
Marybeth- his wife
Sheridan, April, Lucy- his daughters
Missy- his mother-in-law
Nate Romanowski- master falconer
many other characters appear in several books
#1 Open Season 2001
The first book in the series won more awards than any other first novel, starting with a New York Times notable book award.
Joe has just come to Saddlestring, a rookie warden with a wife and two daughters, and another baby is on the way. They live in small, old state-provided housing, and Marybeth's mother Missy has little use for Joe, believing her daughter could have done much better.
The book begins with Joe trying to ticket Ote Keeley for poaching, and Ote grabbing Joe's gun from him, an embarrassment he will never live down, along with once having ticketed the governor of the state for fishing without a license. A few pages later, that same man turns up at Joe's house one night with a cooler full of animal scat from an unknown creature, and badly injured. Ote dies before Joe finds him sprawled on the woodpile.
When Joe, the warden from the next county, and a deputy from the sheriff's department go to check out Ote's outfitter camp high in the mountains. What they find only raises more questions.
#2 Savage Run 2002
The book begins with an ecoterrorist, Stewie Woods, and his new wife being blown up by an exploding cow. It turns out to be as gruesome as it sounds, but not as ridiculous.
Two hit men have been hired to track down radical eco-terrorists and kill them.
When someone posing as the dead Stewie calls Joe's wife, Joe is both jealous and concerned. Meanwhile, he's discovered that a man with a lot of political clout has poached a massive elk just for the trophy value. True to his character, Joe is outraged and is determined to bring the man to account.
Savage Run is a sheer chasm through a geological split in the Bighorn Mountains. Legend has it that the Cheyenne once fled from enemies across Savage Run by means of a secret route down and up the steep cliffs. Joe must find a way across or perhaps be killed.
In book time, Sheridan is two years older and much more savvy in the ways of the adult world.
#3 Winterkill 2003
This book has several different plots going on which all weave together. Perhaps the primary theme is tension between government and local citizens.
Winterkill opens with Joe observing a man who has apparently gone nuts and is randomly shooting down a herd of elk. When Joe reaches the spot he is stunned to learn that it's Lamar Gardiner, a Forest Service bureaucrat whom he knows. Joe arrests him, but Lamar manages to escape. Joe chases him down as a winter storm begins to unfold only to discover that someone else has brutally murdered him in the few minutes he was out of sight.
When another government employee is killed, investigators from federal agencies show up to find out what's going on, but their ability to interact with local residents is terrible at best, inflammatory at worst.
Meanwhile, a group of outcast transients arrives in town calling themselves the Sovereign Nation, and setting up camp in the National Forest. Among this group is the biological mother of April, Joe and Marybeth's middle daughter. The problem is that their efforts to adopt April have been stuck in the legal system for all the years she's lived with them. April's mother appears with an order from a judge to have April returned to her.
The book culminates in a standoff between the Sovereign Nation and the federals with the backing of the local sheriff.
Sheridan is now eleven and in fifth grade. Missy, Marybeth's mother, is there visiting once again and is up to what will become her modus operendi- to shed a husband she no longer has use for and find a new one with more money and more power. Lucy, much more interested in fashion and trends than Sheridan, finds Missy delightful.
Nate Romanowski is introduced and is suspected of the murders mostly because of his military history and his desire to live off the grid.
#4 Trophy Hunt 2004
This is my least favorite book in the series. It relies heavily on paranormal overtones in the plot which are not something I'm crazy about. There is an infodump at the end when the guilty party confesses. Sometimes you just have to do it that way, but again, not my fav. A young Goth woman sends Joe a pornographic email. It does make sense in the plot, but this trifecta just doesn't appeal to me. Several pieces of physical evidence are never explained. That said, the backbone of the plot is based on a real event that occurred in Montana.
A dead moose is found horribly mutilated. Then some cattle suffer the same fate. The mutilations are not done by wild animals. The cuts are clean and surgical.
Meanwhile, a rogue grizzly bear whose radio collar is malfunctioning, so it can't be tracked properly, turns up in Joe's territory.
Sheridan has portentious dreams and Nate claims he is communicating with the bear and knows there is some higher plot taking place.
Then two humans are found dead with the same kinds of mutilations.
#5 Out of Range 2005
#6 In Plain Sight 2006
The brother of Ote Keely (see Open Season) is released from prison, and he blames Joe for Ote's death and also for what happened to Ote's wife and April while they were staying with the Sovereign Nation (see Winterkill). John Wayne Keely is out for revenge, but he takes the name of Bill Monroe and gets hired by one of the feuding Scarlett brothers.
The Thunderhead Ranch, belonging to the Scarlett family, is ruled with the iron hand of Opal. But when Opal disappears, her sons Hank and Arlen start battling for control.
Where is Opal? Who will take over the ranch? Sheridan, now fourteen, is best friends with Hank's daughter Julie, and she is caught up in the drama.
Everything comes to a head in a downpour of a storm that causes the Twelve Sleep River to jump its banks and bring normal transportation and communication to a halt.
Missy (now) Longbrake is still belittling Joe for his inability to protect his family from harassment. His boss is micromanaging him, and finally fires him.
#7 Free Fire 2007
After being fired, Joe works as ranch foreman for several months for his new father-in-law. His family has all moved out to the ranch and Missy is delighted they are under her control.
Then Governor Spencer Roulon, a loud and brash, but well-loved character, asks Joe to come back to the agency, but as a special employee of his. And for starters, he wants Joe to investigate the slaughter of four people in Yellowstone National Park. The shooter has taken advantage of a loophole in the law that allows him to go scott free because the small section of the park where the incident takes place does not technically have any way to prosecute him.
The plot gets more and more bizarre. Joe meets an expert on geothermal features who is convinced the volcaon under Yellowstone is about to erupt. He also is forced to come face to face with his own family's past. His youunger brother committed suicide long ago at Yellowstone.
Nate shows up to provide backup for Joe as they close in on the reason for the murders.
#8 Blood Trail 2008
Someone is hunting hunters. It takes three murders before anyone begins to suspect a pattern/serial killer, and Governor Spencer Roulon calls on Joe to look into it. He also hires a world-renowned tracker to help locate the perpetrator. Joe uses his leverage to get Nate released from Federal prison where he's been for a year.
Joe's supervisor Randy Pope, who really has no use for Joe, inserts himself into the investigation, and Joe has to wonder why.
A famous environmental spokesman appears in Saddlestring, and quickly becomes the prime suspect as he is primarily against hunting. The situation quickly gets out of hand and the deaths pile up.
Nate immediately disappers even though he's supposed to be in Joe's custody. Joe knows he's gone back to Alicia Whiteplulme, the Shoshone woman he loves. But the environmentalist and his Shoshone wife are with them, causing Joe to ask himself many questions.
#9 Below Zero 2009
Someone starts texting Sheridan claiming to be her long-thought-dead foster sister April. While skeptical at first, eventually, they all believe it is April and that she is in deadly danger. She's been abducted by two men- one a dying gangster and the other his envioronmental actvist son Robert who sells carbon credits to help people reduce their carbon footprint "below zero."
Robert is more dangerous than the gangster. He took the girl who had been sold to a brothel by her gambling foster father. She admires and trusts him. But it becomes clear that he can be quite ruthless when it comes to exacting revenge on those who have betrayed him.
When the FBI learns the name of the gangster April is with, they become highly interested.
This story has one basic plot instead of several, but the chase to find April and catch Robert and his father is not without surprises.
#10 Nowhere to Run 2010
Joe is on a routine patrol to check hunters when he finds an oddly dressed man fishing in a remote location. The man has too many fish, and when Joe prompts him for his license, the man can't produce it. He says it must be back in camp, so Joe accompanies him and discovers that the man is one of a set of twins, and something seems really off about them.
Joe soon finds out that they have no intention of letting him off the mountain.
This is a chilling tale of people who are attempting to live out of reach of the "government."
#11 Cold Wind 2011
Joe's mother-in-law Missy, has upgraded her marriage to Earl Alden who now owns all of his property, Thunderbird Ranch (from In Plain Sight) and that of her previous husband, Bud Longbrake whose land she got from him due to a pre-nuptual agreement that he failed to read carefully.
Earl has invested in the up-and-coming wind technology. He is rich and satisfied.
But Earl is brutally murdered and his body is found under very strange circumstances. Missy is immediately charge with the murder because the weapon was found in her car.
Joe is totally conflicted about helping her. Despite how little he likes her, she is Marybeth's mother, after all. He also finds it hard to believe that as greedy and conniving as she is that she would actually shoot someone in a face-off. But most of all, Joe wants to find the truth.
She calls in the powerful lawyer, Marcus Hand, to defend her.
#12 Force of Nature 2012
Joe Pickett's friend, Nate Romanowski, has a past in Special Forces, but he ran afoul of most authority figures long ago. He lives off the grid both literally and emotionally. His former commander is out to eliminate all those who know anything about a high-level crime. He figures he can draw Nate out of hiding by targeting his friend Joe Pickett and Pickett's family.
This one reads more like a military thriller than a story about a game warden, but it's really good.
#13 Breaking Point 2013
This story really resonates with me because it is based on one true story of the EPA overreaching to disallow a property owner to build on his lot for reasons of wetlands protection. When I was studying wetlands science, I learned a lot of reasons why these areas should be protected, but also of too many cases where regulations reached the ridiculous stage.
Two armed EPA employees show up in a new subdivision to tell Butch Roberson to stop moving dirt on his land. Not only that, he has to restore it to the condition it was the day before or he will be fined thousands of dollars a day.
The EPA men are shot dead and Butch goes on the run.
Marybeth is trying to partner with a local realtor to restore an historic building in town, but they are totally stymied by EPA regulations concerting asbestos and paint in the old building.
The regional supervisor for the EPA is out of control, but he may not be exactly who he claims.
Lots of gunfire and blowing things up.
#14 Stone Cold 2014
Nate and Joe have equal time in this book. Nate is still on the run from the federal government, and he has been hired by a wealthy man, Templeton, who hires killers to eliminate really bad people. This is similar to what Nate used to do when he was in Special Forces, and in his mind is totally justifiable.
Joe is sent by Governor Rulon to look into what's really going on in the county where Templeton lives. He devises a reason to visit the game warden in that area and stumbles into a situation where the entire county is under the control of Templeton.
Nate has been living off the grid in a line shack, and he meeets Olivia Brannon who works for Templeton. They are perfect for each other.
A third story line has Sheridan, who is now in college, getting really bad vibes about a fellow student who is obsessed with guns- more so than even the Wyoming culture allows. And the boy is odd. He seems to be building up to some sort of bad action.
Mother-in-law Missy is still up to her old tricks.
#15 Endangered 2015
Joe and Marybeth's adopted daughter April runs off with cowboy rodeo hero Dallas Cates. A few months later, April is found in a ditch, near death. She was beaten and dumped. Cates says he didn't do it, but April is in an induced coma and can't tell her story.
This book introduces the entire Cates family who are violent and act crazy. Dallas is the only mostly normal one in the bunch.
When Nate shows up in town to help Joe, he is ambushed, shot, and ends up in the same hosptial as April.
Meanwhile, the Cates clan: Brenda and Eldon, with sons Bull, Timber and Dallas are out to prove to the world that they should not be treated as white trash.
Non-stop action and some unique plot segments.
#16 Off the Grid 2016
This book is mostly about Nate, with Joe showing up at the end to help him.
Nate is living off-grid-- even farther off than usual because he's still wanted by the feds. However, two of them find him and offer to clear his record if he will do one mission for them. He is sent to the Red Desert to find out what's going on at a secret compound.
Meanwhile, Sheridan is cajoled into going on a weekend camping trip by one of her college roommates. No one is quite sure what the purpose of the trip is.
And Joe is sent by Governor Rulon to check on a game warden from a different district.
The three stories converge for an ending that is pure terrorist genre.
#17 Vicious Circle 2017
The Cates family is back. Although they did not all survive Endangered, the ones who did solidly blame Joe Pickett for everything that happened to them and they are out for revenge.
Dallas Cates has just been released from prison and he appears to immediately head back into a life of crime. He manages to escape prosecution for a murder and now he can't be tried for it again although everyone is certain he was guilty.
Nate was cleared of his federal charges, and he's trying to live a civilized life with Olivia. They are operating a "bird abatement business," using falcons to rid areas of nuisance birds. But he's still wild enough to come to Joe's aid when needed.
#18 The Disappeared 2018
Sheridan Pickett is working as a wrangler at a high-end guest ranch. One of the guests failed to return home to England after her summer stay. Her car was never found, and she left behind a business. Foul play is suspected.
The new governor, Colter Allen, wants Joe to look into it. He seems to be asking Joe to be his "range rider" as Joe did for Governor Rulon, but Allen is much more politically motivated, and Joe is not very enthusiastic.
Meanwhile, someone is bribing the night operator of a sawmill furnace that burns waste sawdust. The pickup comes in the early morning hours and throws things in the furnace to be burned with no trace due to the intense heat.
The employees of the guest ranch are cleared from suspicion. Joe asks for help from his friend Nate. Nate does come, but he's spinning a consipracy theory involving the local wind farm that Joe doesn't want to hear.
The governor fires Joe when Joe actually gets close to solving the mystery. Nate was at least partly right, Joe was sent on this mission to fail. But Joe figures it will take at least three days for the paperwork to come through so he keeps pressing toward the solution.
The book ends in a cliffhanger with Joe no longer having a job.
#19 Wolf Pack 2019
This is without a doubt the most violent of all the books in this series. The Wolf Pack is a gang of thugs from the Sinaloa drug cartel and they are coming back to Twelve Sleep County to kill a man who is in the witness protection program.
Meanwhile, Katleyn the game warden in the neighboring county asks for Joe's help to track down the pilot of a drone that is running wildlife to death. Katleyn and Joe keep bumpong up against dead ends when they can't find out any information about the owner.
Nate has settled into civilized life and is running a nuisance bird abatement business with the help of his love, Liz Brannon.
The brutal deaths keep piling up as the gang fulfills its mission.
#20 Long Range 2020
Someone takes a long-distance sniper shot at Judge Hewlitt in his own home. At the last minute, the judge leans over and the bullet hits his wife, critically injuring her.
Joe is called back from helping to find a rogue bear in Jackson county that has killed an outfitter. The new sheriff is a politically motivated young man who is also fairly incompetent. But Joe and Nate begin to find clues that lead to the shooter.
Then the county prosecutor is targeted, but the shooter misses.
The sheriff receives a tip that Nate was the guilty party, and he throws Romanowski in jail. Nate handles this less well than ever since he's unable to be home to protect Liv and his new baby, Kestrel, from threats that have been made against him.
#21 Dark Sky 2021
#22 Shadows Reel 2022
#23 Storm Watch 2023
#24 Three-Inch Teeth 2024
#25 Battle Mountain 2025
An old outfitter is scouting for elk herds prior to the season when he will guide hunting parties. He's training an assistant. They are ambushed and captured by a team of commandoes in camoflauge.
The new assistant turns out to be Governor Roulon's son-in-law, and Joe is called in on special duty to find out what has happened to the men.
The side story involves the continuing search by Nate and Geronimo Jones to exact revenge on Axel Solidad.
The culmination of the story is on Battle Mountain, a totally fictitious location, but it is provided with a plausible history for the name.
There is only one little paranormal episode between Nate and a falcon.
#26 The Crossroads (Putnam, February 2026)
