Rating: 
Summary: Things get personal
Review: The third Joe Pickett mystery once again finds trouble brewing in the wilds of Wyoming, but this time there is an added obstacle to maintaining peace and tranquility in this beautiful part of the world - the harsh winter storms have closed the place down. In the first two books by C.J. Box, (Open Season and Savage Run), we have been treated to mysteries with strong environmental themes. In Winterkill Joe turns his attention to a murder investigation and then a more pressing personal crisis.
Joe Pickett is the game warden with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department living in the small town of Saddlestring, Twelve Sleep County. He is a quiet and easy-going family man, husband to Marybeth, father to 11 year-old Sheridan, 6 year old Lucy and foster-father to 9 year-old April. A fair, hard-working man he stands up for what he believes in even when that means leaving himself and, occasionally, his family open to get hurt.
While out on his regular patrol one winter's day, Joe witnesses a hunter who flouts the 1 elk bag limit by running amok through a herd, taking down 7 animals before Joe can get to him. When he does he is shocked to find that the hunter is none other than Lamar Gardiner, the district supervisor for Twelve Sleep National Forest, the person who makes the hunting laws, not the person who breaks them. In a typically Joe Pickett moment, Lamar escapes his custody and rushes into the forest in the middle of a worsening snowstorm. By the time Joe finds him again, he has been brutally murdered.
Coinciding with the murder is the arrival of a ragtag group of people in SUV's and camper-vans who take up residence in the National Park outside of town; they call themselves Sovereigns and are a mixture of anti-government protesters and dropouts. Among the Sovereigns is Jeannie Keeley, April's mother, a bitter and angry woman who abandoned April when she was a toddler. Joe and Marybeth are faced with the prospect of losing the little girl they had come to love as their own daughter.
The murder results in the arrival of another Forest Service agent, Melinda Strickland, supposedly sent to investigate her fellow officer's death. But she's bad news, you can tell that straight away when, moments after being introduced to Joe he watches as she barely restrains from kicking her dog in a moment of anger. Dog-kicking proves to be the least of her sins though. She is a self-centered woman with little regard for the safety of others, a dangerous woman when dealing with murderers and harsh climactic conditions.
Joe is dragged into the mess as a potential bloodbath looks a likely result of the standoff between the Sovereigns and the Federal Agents. To start with he is merely a concerned local citizen whose concern is primarily for a peaceful existence, but it becomes personal when April is placed right in the firing line inside the Sovereign camp.
Winterkill starts out at a very relaxed pace and we are allowed to settle in and enjoy a snowed-in Christmas with the Picketts, giving us a chance to feel comfortable with them. We are also given ample opportunity to enjoy the descriptions of the spectacular scenery surrounding them. This soon changes to the mounting tension and frustration levels as Strickland and the feds take over the town. Finally, we are thrust into a dramatic race against time through atrocious conditions ensuring a breathless ending.
It was established in the earlier books of the series that Joe Pickett is a "good" man. He always takes the passive option, often to his own detriment, and is ruled by his conscience. This is carried on in Winterkill, but it tends to restrict his effectiveness as a protagonist, particularly when he comes up against completely morally bankrupt people, as he does here. Enter a new character and eventual ally for Joe, Nate Romanowski. Nate oozes confidence and violence and adds a touch of the maverick for the good guys. He's a perfect foil to Joe's upstanding philosophy and, although we don't learn a lot about his past, every time he entered the scene he was a breath of fresh air.
A murder investigation, a Ruby Ridge style stand-off on Battle Mountain and a desperate bid by a father to protect his daughter makes Winterkill a thrilling book. Add to that Box's ability to paint the Wyoming landscape with wonderful clarity that gave me a strong sense of place and you've got a very enjoyable book.
Rating:
Summary: exciting look at modern western justice
Review: There are only fifty-five Game Wardens to cover the state of Wyoming. Joe Picket's district consists of 1,500 square miles, but he spots a hunter illegally kill a bunch of elks. When he apprehends the suspect he is shocked to discover it is Lamar Gardiner, the District Supervisor for the Twelve-Sleep National Forest. Lamar escapes, but when the game warden finds him again, he is dead, stuck to a tree by the arrows that killed him.His death brings to town Melinda Strickland, a high-ranking Forest Service official heading a task force to keep anti-government groups off federal land. The Sovereigns, dissenters from Waco, Ruby Ridge and the Montana Freemen, stake out a piece of land on Battle Mountain, which they rename the Sovereign Citizen Compound. Among them is the mother of Joe's foster daughter who has a court order to take custody of April. She legally takes April to the compound. The situation is volatile because Srickland and the FBI plan to oust the Sovereigns from the compound, using force if necessary, and Joe fears that his beloved foster child will become caught in the crossfire. In WINTERKILL there is a paradigm switch because the supposed good guys act like criminals while the radicals act like peace loving citizens in need of refuge. The protagonist is constantly torn between law and justice making him willing to try anything to prevent the crisis from reaching a boiling point. Though one sided, C.J. Box takes aim at rogue agents in the Federal government by showing the damage they can do if they are not fired at the first hint of wrong doing. This is an exciting take of modern western justice. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Emotional
Review: This is a much more emotional story than we usually find
in the mystery field. Most readers will at one time or another
practically shout out, "leave the guy alone." The author
so fully developes his characters that you feel for all of them
as hero Joe Pickett works on multiple problems in his job as
a Wyoming game warden, and he tries to balance demands of
that job with his awesome responsibilities as a husband and father.
Plus, the writer has such descriptive powers that most readers
will be able to feel that cold Wyoming wind, and we can almost
feel ourselves sinking into those deep snowdrifts as we trudge
through the winter country, seeking answers to those multiple
problems.
The problems start when Pickett finds a USFS manager killing
multiple elk, for no apparent reason, and shortly after an arrest is
made, that government employee is chillingly murdered in bizarre
circumstances, and Pickett is left with more questons than answers. Then a BLM employee is lured into a truck mishap
and left to die in the cold.
But the problems really blow up when an inexperienced "task
force" leader shows up, and she bulls her way into the investigation with threats and bombast, and her ego-driven
"leadership" causes the whole mess to expand and start to spin
out of control.
We can only hope the US Forest Service hasn't declined as much
as the author suggests in this story, but that may be wishful thinking, because there is ample evidence that the great federal
land-management agencies have been taken over by issue-driven
bureaucrats, whose agendas don't include much consideration for
the people who actually use the resources they purportedly manage for the benefit of the many.
But Box apparently knows his subject matter, because the whole
story, with all the side issues, rings true. He writes in a way that
we can, and do, believe in the personality clashes and resource
mis-management he describes.
He is a very capable writer, and this story is both gripping and
full of truths we can understand and relate to.
Get yourself into this story and see how difficult it is to put down
before the finish.
Rating:
Summary: Emotional
Review: This is a much more emotional story than we usually find
in the mystery field. Most readers will at one time or another
practically shout out, "leave the guy alone." The author
so fully developes his characters that you feel for all of them
as hero Joe Pickett works on multiple problems in his job as
a Wyoming game warden, and he tries to balance demands of
that job with his awesome responsibilities as a husband and father.
Plus, the writer has such descriptive powers that most readers
will be able to feel that cold Wyoming wind, and we can almost
feel ourselves sinking into those deep snowdrifts as we trudge
through the winter country, seeking answers to those multiple
problems.
The problems start when Pickett finds a USFS manager killing
multiple elk, for no apparent reason, and shortly after an arrest is
made, that government employee is chillingly murdered in bizarre
circumstances, and Pickett is left with more questons than answers. Then a BLM employee is lured into a truck mishap
and left to die in the cold.
But the problems really blow up when an inexperienced "task
force" leader shows up, and she bulls her way into the investigation with threats and bombast, and her ego-driven
"leadership" causes the whole mess to expand and start to spin
out of control.
We can only hope the US Forest Service hasn't declined as much
as the author suggests in this story, but that may be wishful thinking, because there is ample evidence that the great federal
land-management agencies have been taken over by issue-driven
bureaucrats, whose agendas don't include much consideration for
the people who actually use the resources they purportedly manage for the benefit of the many.
But Box apparently knows his subject matter, because the whole
story, with all the side issues, rings true. He writes in a way that
we can, and do, believe in the personality clashes and resource
mis-management he describes.
He is a very capable writer, and this story is both gripping and
full of truths we can understand and relate to.
Get yourself into this story and see how difficult it is to put down
before the finish.
Rating:
Summary: Joe Pickett gets a sidekick, maybe
Review: This is the third book in the Joe Pickett series, and unconventional is the rule in each of the books. The author manages to make a character with a wife and kids into something of an action hero, complete with gun, pickup truck, and dog, and a series of enemies that attempt everything from annoyance to murder to thwart him.
In the current book, Pickett has a murder on his hands. In this case the murder is complicated by the fact that the victim was a local Federal wildlife officer who just went nuts and killed a whole flock of elk. Pickett arrested him, but he escaped, only to be brutally and strangely killed.
Complicating things are two factors. First, the local authorities have been preempted by a Federal investigator who has taken charge of everything. She's convinced that there's a conspiracy of right-wing nutcases, survivalists who want to kill Federal agents, and of course she's going to hunt them down, damn the consequences. One of her principle suspects is a local mountain man type who has almost no interaction with the rest of society, and raises falcons at his house. That guy turns out to be more than everyone bargained for.
I enjoyed this book a great deal, and would recommend it to anyone who likes the wilderness or detective stories. One proviso: the author isn't a conservative politically (one of his previous books involves the Endangered Species list) but this book deals with the Federal government and bureaucrats rather harshly. Just a warning.
Rating:
Summary: Best One Yet!
Review: This is the third of the Joe Pickett series and was my favorite to date (would rate the others highly as well). As with the other novels, it takes on the conflicts between various governmental interests and local private interests on issues surrounding the environment ... and, as with past books, does not impose a strong personal bias on the reader as far as who is in the right. The dynamics/complexities of Joe Pickett's family life are again a worthwhile backdrop to the main plot line, and the periodic use of changing points of view in this novel works well in playing out those dynamics. The addition of the Nate Romanowski character is an interesting one (good potential to reappear in future Pickett tales?) with the background on falconry a nice addition as well. Very appealing main character, interesting setting, good tension and pace to the prose ... Look forward to reading more from Mr. Box.
Rating:
Summary: Real Heroes at last!
Review: This was a wonderful read. I couldn't put it down. In so many ways, it accurately depicts the life of a game warden ( I'm married to one), as well as the attitudes many of tese skilled professional law enforcement offcers have to contend with. I've read all of the " Joe Pickett " novels and loved each of them, but this was by far my favorite.
Rating:
Summary: Great Story, Sloppy Editing
Review: Winterkill brings the same fine storytelling and excellent sense of character and place found in Box's previous Pickett novels. Kudos to Box, who has quickly become one of my favorites.
The only thing that prevents me from giving this book five stars is the unforgiveably sloppy editing. One character is christened both "Trey" and "Terry" - on the same page. A crucial event in the novel - the abandonment of April - is referred to as having happened three years ago, then in another mention, five years ago. The book is also filled with distracting typos, including several double words ("he saw that that the snow had melted" type things). Errors of this kind are unfortunate and distracting in a book of this caliber. I can only assume the publisher was overly eager to get the next book by this award-winning author on the shelves.
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