Rating: 
Summary: Impressive debut
Review: I gather this book has garnered some awards since its publication, and I think for the most part they are deserved. C.J. Box has written a relatively interesting mystery. The plot isn't as mysterious as you would like, but the characters are well-drawn and the action moves right along. The novel does have a political edge to it, but that's handled relatively deftly, and without most of the partisan preaching you tend to get on this sort of issue.Joe Pickett is an interesting character. He's a Game Warden in Wyoming, a bright ambitious young man with a wife and two children who's trying to do the right thing, and idealistically honest, if a bit naive. When a poacher stumbles into his backyard wounded, and dies on his property, Joe thinks that he must have come to him for a reason. He goes looking for the man's partners. That leads to a shootout, and more questions. When Joe continues to look into the case even though everyone else thinks it's closed, things get ugly, and things "get western" as he puts it himself. I enjoyed this book a great deal, and would recommend it. I'll be looking for the other entries in the series.
Rating: 
Summary: Exciting mystery debut
Review: While still a Wyoming state game warden trainee, Joe Pickett ticketed a man fishing without a license. The man turned out to be the state governor. One week after being assigned to Twelve Sleep County, Joe fines outfitter Ote Keeley for shooting a buck out of season. However, Ote takes Joe's gun away and points it at the game warden's head before calmly accepting his ticket. Though he continues working hard, Joe has never fully recovered from the Keeley incident. A few months later, Keeley reenters Joe's life when his daughter finds the outfitter dead at the woodpile near the Pickett home. Next to the corpse is a cooler containing pellets of excrement. Joe and fellow warden Wacey Hedeman assist sheriff Bud Barnum with the investigation. However, soon Joe is in trouble with his superiors, his pregnant wife for jeopardizing his job, and with a killer trying to add a nosy game warden to the list. OPEN SEASON is an entertaining police procedural tale that works because the author steps out of the box by insuring his star is not superman. Instead he is just an average Joe struggling with learning his new job, obtaining a decent standard of living for his family, and still trying to do the right thing. The story line is filled with twists and turns so that the audience into thinking h wrong person is the villain. The endangered species issue is well designed within the plot with C.J. Box cleverly laying it out so that the reader can decide on this complex question. Fans will want more Wyoming mysteries starring a guy named Joe. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Don't start reading this unless you have all night
Review: I had a lot to do tonight around the house, but was having a hard time focusing. So I figure I'll read a chapter or two of this book "Open Season" that I'd picked up because it seemed kinda interesting... It's now a little past 2:00 AM. My eyes are blurred, I gotta take a leak, and my shoulders and back are stiff from laying on the couch reading all night. Just couldn't put it down once I opened it. Finished the book, read the teaser for the next Joe Pickett novel, read the short bio of CJ Box on the back page, and then even reread all the reviews in the front of the book. Just couldn't get enough. Of course, I also went on Amazon.com and bought the next novel. Joe Pickett and his family are some of the best characters I've encountered in a long time, and I know I'll be following them for years to come (I hope). Just a great book!
Rating:
Summary: By far the best book I've ever read.
Review: C.J. Box is one of the most talented authors I've come across. To create such a novel as Open Season on his first book ever is very impressive. I'm not the worlds quickest reader, but I couldn't put this book down. I read it in less than five hours. The vividness used by Box is amazing. I felt as though my whole world had disappeared around me, and I was out in the middle of Wyoming. After reading this book I can't help but feel as though Joe Pickett has been a little part of my life. Box really made me step back and ask myself if I'm more like Joe Pickett, standing up for my values, or am I like many others in his novel who'll do anything for a little bit of percived gain. Again, I'm really impressed by C.J. Box's talent, and I really look forward to his next book. If you're deciding on reading the book, I highly recommend it. Best book ever!
Rating:
Summary: Great debut
Review: C. J. Box has a promising new career as a novelist. OPEN SEASON introduces Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett, a good family man with a strong moral compass. No matter what obstacles are put on his way he will do whatever it takes to put things right. As the novel starts the body of Ote Keeley is found on Pickett's backyard. Keeley has been a thorn on Pickett's side for quite some time since he humiliated him while performing his job. The game warden has been made fun of due to this incident and nobody will let him forget it. Beside the body of Keeley there is a broken ice cooler and it seems that Ote wanted to show Joe something before he was shot. During the course of the investigation several other bodies of people close to Keeley turn up dead. The main suspect is in critical condition at the hospital after a police shoot-out. Pickett is not convinced that they have their man so he decides to perform his own investigation. During his work he will find that his family, his job and his life are all in jeopardy. Box does a superb job in keeping Joe Pickett real by introducing us to his family. They all love each other and will do anything for each other. They all share the same worries and struggles that plague the mind of this family man. If someone comes after his family, he is not going to show them any mercy. Joe's oldest daughter, Sheridan, has been hiding a secret since the body of Keeley was found and she will be playing an important role in the book's conclusion. There are no easy answers in this novel. The conclusion of the case will bring a lot of unintended consequences to the small town in Wyoming that will probably linger in his future novels. If you like the novels of P. J. Parrish and Steve Hamilton you will certainly enjoy C. J. Box's debut novel.
Rating:
Summary: Learn the name: C.J. Box
Review: There are so many things about C.J. Box's debut mystery that make it one of the best mysteries I have read, and hands-down the best first novel I've experienced in ANY genre. There is the moral compass and humanity of its protagonist, Joe Pickett: the Wyoming game warden as straight as he is flawed, the vivid descriptions of the wilds of Wyoming, the navigation of the story line as it twists through several shades of gray and the exquisite treatment of Sheridan, a child character as well-written as they come. When the poacher who held up Pickett with his own gun winds up dead on his backyard woodpile, Joe is puzzled by the poacher's choice of resting place and has no idea the significance of the cooler found next to him. This is Pickett's introduction to a world of corporate exploitation, political angling and the threats against his family and his passion that drums up the stakes with every page turned. At times clumsy, always well-meaning and ultimately heroic in spite of his limitations, Joe is humanized in a way that preserves the nobility of the pure protagonist and makes us wish we could be as right when we were wrong. Box is an author who has stepped into the genre with a clean, fast and remarkably adept first novel. Keep an eye on C.J. Box. ....
Rating:
Summary: Don't start reading this unless you have all night
Review: I had a lot to do tonight around the house, but was having a hard time focusing. So I figure I'll read a chapter or two of this book "Open Season" that I'd picked up because it seemed kinda interesting... It's now a little past 2:00 AM. My eyes are blurred, I gotta take a leak, and my shoulders and back are stiff from laying on the couch reading all night. Just couldn't put it down once I opened it. Finished the book, read the teaser for the next Joe Pickett novel, read the short bio of CJ Box on the back page, and then even reread all the reviews in the front of the book. Just couldn't get enough. Of course, I also went on Amazon.com and bought the next novel. Joe Pickett and his family are some of the best characters I've encountered in a long time, and I know I'll be following them for years to come (I hope). Just a great book!
Rating: 
Summary: Most obvious villians ever
Review: You know how some movies are summarized as chick flicks? This book would fall under whatever pithy genre any man would go for (obvious name is rude). Everything's set in black and white. Villians may as well wear neon "I'm bad" signs. In spite of that, I liked the book. It's predictable the same comforting way a "cozy" English mystery is - you know immediately who does what to whom and why. Joe Pickett is an excellent hero, too - fallible and trying his best to live an uncorrupted life.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting characters, predictable story
Review: I bought this because it was a NYTimes Notable Book and they have never steered me wrong. The minute he started describing the rest of the characters (not family), however, I knew exactly where this story was going--who the bad guys were, what they were doing and why. And I normally don't figure out the who, what, when, where and why between pgs. 64-78. I would think one would want the reader to stay in suspense for as long as possible. I typically prefer more "noir-type" authors who might let you know the who but rarely let the reader know the how and why. Lest you think I only like the "dark" authors (Rankin, Robinson, Hill, etc.), I do enjoy the more domestic-type stories of G.M. Ford, Donald Harstad and Steve Hamilton too. Having said all this, I would recommend the author. He has a good writing style--his descriptions of people and places are very well done, maybe too well done for a mystery writer. He did throw in a BIG curve towards the end of the book for one family member; I surely didn't see that coming. And I'm sorry to say, while I appreciate the environmental issues that face folks all over the United States, I don't want to be preached to about them. If he could have possibly introduced some unknown aspect of an environmental issue(s), I would be more open to hearing about it. I may be bucking the tide here but I probably won't be recommending this particular book to my mystery-devouring friends who enjoyed being teased until the end.
Rating:
Summary: IMPRESSIVE AT LEFT COAST
Review: CJ Box spoke on environmental issue novels at Pasadena's Left Coast Crime mystery convention. He explained how he wrote this work and the issues he hoped to address in it. Following his panel, I bought the book. I just finished reading it. It is a marvelous success, deserving its unprecedented award status. It has also been translated into nine languages. Good work, Mr. Box.
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