C. J. Box

Excellent story. Joe is now able to go home, but he first wants to investigate the report from some hunters who said they shot an elk that once they located their kill it had already been butchered. This is also the area where a marathon runner was last known to have been running prior to her disappearance 4 yrs earlier. Joe happens upon a man fishing in a stream who is not dressed like a normal sportsman would be attired. Joe asks to see the man's fishing license. He says it must be at his campsite where his brother is located. Thus begins a harrowing fight for survival for Joe when both his horses and himself are hit with arrows. He comes upon a cabin and in taken in and nursed back to health by a woman who Joe believes is the missing runner. Joe is able to walk out of the mountains to safety and taken to a hospital where he relays his misadventure. A large group of law enforcement look for these brothers but can find no trace of them, the cabin (which was burned) or the horses he lost. They do not , then, believe his story. Joe is healing at home when the mother and father of the missing runner come to him and ask him to look for her. Relucantly, he and his friend, Nate, set off. Nate knows that the only was to end the hunt is by killing these two men. Joe and Nate locate the brothers, have a stand off, sit and chat about their next steps, Each side steps away, but Joe cannot leave without taking these men into custody. Nate has walked off and the brothers return to the site, along with Joe. Joe shoots one of the brothers and then Nate shoots both of brothers again. It turns out that the brothers had unloaded their weapons when they stepped away. Joe and Nate load the dead bodies on horses and the missing runner rides out with them. She ends up riding off with Nate to be introduced to the underground, where she will find others like herself who want to be left alone. Joe rides to his starting place where a calvary of law enforcement have converged to get the brothers and to take the runner home.… (more)

That late into a series, you either like the setting and characters or you had bailed out (or you somehow picked a very late novel in a series and proceed to get lost in old references and unexplained connections). This one was a lot better than the previous one - mainly because Box stepped back from the tangent he had been going into (more politics than nature) and came back to a more balanced entry. Politics had always been a part of this series and I do not expect that to change but when they take the front seat (as in the previous installment), things just do not work as well - not for a book about Joe anyway.

Joe Pickett is out chasing an wounded elk and to exactly noone's surprise, he manages to stumble onto a body - of the human variety. With a heavy storm closing in and everyone seemingly wanting to ignore and forget the dead man (whose body also somehow disappears at one point), it comes down to our game warden to somehow stumble into the truth. Meanwhile, Nate's pursuit of the man who stole his falcons and wounded his wife continues. Before long the stories will of course end up meeting - and with a heavy dose of familiar characters showing up again, the novel fits into the series. Maybe don't read it when it is cold outside though - the whole novel relies on the cold and the snow to make things even more oppressive. Which works - but leaves a very oppressive aftertaste.… (more)