Savage Run (A Joe Pickett Novel) - Hardcover

Box, C. J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399148876 ISBN 13: 9780399148873

Publisher: Putnam Adult, 2002

Synopsis

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett heads for the forests of Twelve Sleep County to investigate a massive explosion that may have killed a colorful environmental activist and uncovers evidence of a deadly conspiracy that challenges his courage, survival skills, and ethics. By the author of Open Season. 30,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

C. J. Box is the author of thirteen Joe Pickett novels and three stand-alones, and has won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe, and Barry Awards, as well as the French Prix Calibre .38. His most recent Joe Pickett novel, Force of Nature, debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestseller list. He lives outside Cheyenne, Wyoming, with his family.

Reviews

Box's second novel offers more graceful writing than his overhyped debut, Open Season (2001), along with a little humor and a more fluid plot line. Wyoming Game Warden Joe Picket is still fallible, his strong sense of duty, honor and justice again naOvely running afoul of the greedy villains bent on misusing the exquisite, vividly described landscape. A pair of well-drawn, unconventional hit men, one a conscienceless killer, are murdering environmentalists. First, a powerful explosion blows up "infamous environmental activist" Stewie Woods and his new wife while they're sabotaging logging in the forest near Saddlestring, Pickett's headquarters. The sheriff thinks it was an accident, but Pickett is unsure. Then a proenvironment congressman, a writer, a lawyer and an animal-rights activist all die under questionable circumstances. When Pickett's wife, Marybeth, who grew up with Woods, receives mysterious phone calls from "Stewie," Pickett starts his own investigation. A spectacular chase through a treacherous, isolated canyon with a secret escape route is well paced and riveting. The suspense ratchets up another notch as Pickett and an unexpected ally confront the man who ordered the crimes. The author shows both sides of environmental issues - the activists' insistence on a pristine natural habitat countered by the Westerners' view of the land as their livelihood - and pulls no punches when describing how humans can brutalize one another. This fine follow-up reinforces Box's status as a first-class talent.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

(*Starred Review*) It's one thing to follow one of the most impressive first mysteries in years--Open Season [BKL My 1 01]--with a second book every bit as good, but it's quite another to write a first sentence that just might equal James Crumley's opening salvo in The Last Good Kiss. There are no alcoholic bulldogs in Box's lead, as in Crumley's, but there is an exploding cow: "On the third day of their honeymoon, infamous environmental activist Stewie Woods and his new bride, Annabel Bellotti, were spiking trees in the Bighorn National Forest when a cow exploded and blew them up." We dare you not to keep reading after that. Such convenient categories as plot-driven versus character-driven don't work for Box's series starring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett. His plots, centering on issues of land management and the environment but filled with suspense and Old West-style action, are rich in both complexity and narrative drive, and his characters are as full-bodied as any in the genre: Pickett, insecure, error-prone, but a bulldog when pushed; his wife, Marybeth, a thoroughly contemporary western woman who stands by her man without diminishing herself; and a raft of supporting characters who never fail to surprise us, either with moments of weakness or flashes of humanity. This time the incident of the eco-terrorist and the exploding cow leads Pickett to a full-dress conspiracy involving a group of millionaire ranchers out to even the score with environmentalists. Marybeth's youthful romance with the eco-terrorist adds spice to the drama, which concludes with a hair-raising chase through the Wyoming wilderness in which Pickett must cross the forbidding canyon called Savage Run to elude a modern-day version of legendary tracker Tom Horn. The "outdoor mystery" was a thriving subgenre before Box arrived on the scene, but he has taken it to new levels of substance and style. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Two creepy, cold-hearted guys carry out orders from an unseen other as they murder a famous environmental activist, a noted environmental writer, and the country's most powerful "green" congressman. Called in after the first murder (by explosion), which also killed several animals in his part of the Wyoming wilderness, game warden Joe Pickett begins to suspect a broader conspiracy. With a few clues from his part-time librarian wife, Pickett moves the investigation forward. Picturesque detailing, admirable prose, and agitating suspense demonstrate the appeal of this follow-up to Box's Edgar-nominated debut, Open Season. Fan of Nevada Barr and Michael McGarrity will enjoy.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Putnam Adult
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0399148876
• ISBN 13: 9780399148873
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272