Free Fire - Softcover

C.J. Box

4.28

19,935 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848879911 ISBN 13: 9781848879911

Publisher: Corvus, 2011

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Joe Pickett, recently fired from his job as a Wyoming game warden, is working on his father-in-law's ranch when he receives a visit from the governor. Governor Rulon - a devious but down-home politico - has a special request, one Joe knows he can't refuse. For weeks, the headlines have been abuzz with the story of Clay McCann, a lawyer who slaughtered four campers in a far-off corner of Yellowstone. After the murders, McCann immediately turned himself in at the nearest ranger station. Seemed like a slam-dunk case for law enforcement - except that the crimes were committed in a thin sliver of land with zero residents and overlapping jurisdiction, the so-called free-fire zone. McCann has taken advantage of an obscure loophole in the law: neither the state nor the federal government can try him for his crime. The worst mass murderer in Wyoming history walks out of jail a free man. Governor Rulon, sensitive to the rising tide of public outrage, wants his own investigation into the murders

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About the Author:

C.J. Box is the winner of the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, the Barry Award and the Edgar Award and is also an L.A. Times Book Prize finalist. His novels are US bestsellers and have been translated into 21 languages. Box lives with his family outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Visit his website at www.cjbox.net.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* Box set the standards so high with his Joe Pickett series that, once in a while, he's had a hard time getting over the bar himself, as with In Plain Sight (2006), where he just tripped it with his toe. In ree Fire, however, he gets over cleanly. Pickett, having been fired as a game warden, is working as foreman of his father-in-law's ranch when Wyoming's loose-cannon governor, Spencer Rulon, reinstates him--not to work his old district but to investigate, without official support, a crime in Yellowstone National Park. A lawyer has found a legal loophole that allows him to kill four campers and walk away scot-free, enraging Rulon. (A remote, uninhabited part of the park, soon dubbed the "Zone of Death," has murky jurisdiction and no residents to form a jury.) But, sure as Pickett is hard on government vehicles, there's something even more sinister than a twisted legal mind behind the murders. Box is a master at working New West issues into his stories--here it's something called biomining--exploring pro and con arguments without missing a storytelling beat. And, mining series gold, he's forged a perfect alloy of familiar and fresh. Though Joe's far out in no-man's-land, as professionally on his own as he's ever been, the family man's moral compass is as strong as ever. And setting the action in the bubbling Yellowstone caldera--which could blow sky high any minute, we're told--is a masterstroke, lending both urgency and the long view to the proceedings. Once again, recommended for practically everybody. Keir Graff
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