Below Zero (A Joe Pickett Novel) - Hardcover

Box, C. J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399155759 ISBN 13: 9780399155758

Publisher: Putnam Adult, 2009

Synopsis

"Tell Sherry April called." That simple phone message shakes Joe Pickett's oldest daughter, Sheridan, and the rest of the family to the core. To Joe, it doesn't seem even remotely possible that April could have survived the massacre, described in Winterkill, six years before. He was there, and he was unable to save her. But Sheridan starts to believe there's a chance that April is still alive, and her suspicions are confirmed when the person sending texts to her cell phone is able to recall family incidents only April could know.
Meanwhile, a dying Chicago mobster named Stenko and a much younger girl cross the country. He's on a mission to reconcile with his extreme environmentalist son before he goes. His son wants Stenko to repent for the environmental crimes he's committed during his lifetime, by not just becoming carbon neutral, but reducing his carbon footprint to below zero - as if he'd never even existed.
But when "April's" texts start to refer to "bad things," and when Joe discovers they come from locations throughout the West where vicious murders have taken place, alarm bells go off. Joe, Sheridan, and Nate Romanowski take to the road to connect the texts with the crimes.
As Stenko and his companions start to cross paths with Joe, Sheridan, and Nate, the question looms: Is this girl April, or is the Pickett family the victim of the cruelest of hoaxes?

About this title

About the Author

C. J. Box is the author of five Joe Pickett novels, and has won the Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe, and Barry awards. He has also been an Edgar Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. A Wyoming native, Box serves on the board of directors for Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo.

Reviews

Starred Review. Edgar-finalist Box's ninth novel to feature Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett begins with a bombshell: could Pickett's foster daughter, April, who apparently died six years earlier in a horrific conflagration when overzealous FBI agents confronted a group of dissident survivalists (see 2003's Winterkill), still be alive? Pickett's 17-year-old daughter, Sheridan, begins receiving disturbing text messages from someone claiming to be her dead sister, and Pickett's entire family is forced to relive the tragedy. Even worse, whoever is sending these messages is traveling cross-country with suspected serial killers targeting people whose carbon footprint is too high. Still struggling with the guilt of not protecting April from her nightmarish fate in Winterkill, Pickett vows to save her this time, no matter the cost. Powered by provocative themes of environmental activism, this relentlessly paced powder keg of a thriller could be Box's best to date. Author tour. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The hardworking and best-selling Box has been on a two-book-per-year pace of late, alternating his popular Joe Pickett novels with stand-alone thrillers. After a rare misstep in Three Weeks to Say Goodbye (2009), Box returns with a Pickett adventure that marries the fast pace and ensemble approach of the stand-alones with the thematic concerns and reliable cast of the series. It starts when the Wyoming game warden’s teenage daughter, Sheridan, receives a text message with a staggering implication: that April, the foster daughter thought dead in Winterkill (2003), is still alive. If it really is April who’s texting, she’s in danger, and for Pickett, the only thing worse than losing her the first time would be losing her again. Pickett must negotiate FBI politics, recruit his fugitive friend Nate Romanowski, and take a crash course in cell-phone-tracking technology to find her. The environmental theme, always part of a Pickett novel, is global warming, and while Box gets at it in a surprising way (the title doesn’t mean what you think it means), the discussion isn’t as nuanced as we’ve come to expect. The book is, however, a successful blend of the two things Box does best and seems likely to bring fans of the terrific stand-alone Blue Heaven (2008) to this very fine series. --Keir Graff

Edition details

• Publisher: Putnam Adult
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0399155759
• ISBN 13: 9780399155758
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352