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Summary: LOVED It!! Great Debut Novel
Review: It's been a while since a book was able to keep me up past my bedtime but Open Season did. I really enjoyed the Joe Pickett character and his family. You really feel like you are in Montana. Mr. Box knows his stuff. Good mystery, kept you guessing till the end. Check it out! I look forward to Mr. Box's next book
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Summary: A Spectacular Debut.....
Review: Joe Pickett always loved the great outdoors and all he'd ever wanted to be was a game warden. And though his career had taken a rocky start (he'd unknowingly ticketed the governor for fishing without a license and was almost killed when a poacher, Ote Keeley, grabbed his gun and pointed it at his head), being game warden of Twelve Sleep, Wyoming was his dream come true. The pay was low, the benefits, poor and the hours long and hard for a family man, but he was happy. That is, until the morning he found his old "friend" Ote, dead, lying on his woodpile, a scratched up cooler with some animal scat inside, next to him. Within days, two more bodies are discovered at Ote's camp and another outfitter is shot, resisting arrest. Joe thinks the local authorities wrapped up the case a little too quickly and easily. There are still too many unanswered questions and something about the deaths and crime scenes just doesn't smell right, so he continues to investigate on his own. As he digs deeper into the murders and what may really be going on in and around Twelve Sleep, he finds the truth may not only put his career in jeopardy, but also his life and the lives of his family..... C. J. Box has written a well paced thriller that's guaranteed to keep you turning pages right to the end. His tight, compelling, yet entertaining story line is full of twists, turns and surprises; his writing, crisp and tense and his well-drawn characters, interesting, original and very real. But it's Mr Box's amazing descriptions of Wyoming's wilderness, landscape and terrain, that pull you into the story and transport you to the wild, wild west, that really makes this novel stand out. Open Season is a marvelous debut with a great main character and is hopefully, the start of a terrific new series. This is a book that should definitely be on all mystery/thriller fans "must read" list.
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Summary: Open Season Works On All Levels
Review: I just finished Open Season by C.J. Box and I can't quit thinking about it. This novel is billed as a mystery but it works on so many other levels -- as a thriller, as a heart-wrenching story about a family, as a contemporary western, as a environmental exposé. It's an amazing first novel, and I couldn't get enough of it. I can't wait for the next Joe Pickett story.
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Summary: Wyoming Rural Reality
Review: Anyone who has ever hunted or fished in Wyoming will immediately relate to Joe Pickett, his family and the other large-as-life characters in this debut novel. Actions and reactions throughout the book involve values that have become all too rare in urban areas of the United States today, but they are alive and well in Wyoming. Whether you are a catch-and-release fisherman, a trophy elk hunter, or an ardent animal rights activist, you will find this to be a book for you. Or if you are simply an avid reader of regional crime fiction on the level of a James Lee Burke, you will find your time well spent in these pages. The characters ring true, the suspense is there and the outcome is well worth the pursuit. Each time you say "just one more chapter" before putting down this book, you will find yourself reading on and on.
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Summary: Excellent debut in a marvelous setting
Review: I live in a smaller town where the bookseller gets to know your tastes and preferences. On a recent Friday when I stuck my head in her door, she stuck this book in my hand and began ringing it up on the cash register. For the next two days, I was caught up in the world of Joe Pickett, a world where the madness of extremists from both sides of the issue threaten the environment as well as his family. Box does a grand job setting the scenery and getting you into the landscape where his story plays out. And his protagonist, Joe Pickett, is all-too-human, having the kinds of quirks and foibles we all share. Pickett is also honest and driven, balancing the needs of his family against an internal personal code. He is a man of his word, and the elements of his integrity are used against him. Yet when he takes up arms against this enemies, his capacity for violence rivals any character in mainstream mystery fiction. Any story that starts with the sound of a rifle round pounding into flesh has an uphill fight if it is to consistently maintain the reader's attention. Box does it and makes it look easy.
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Summary: great debut
Review: Wyoming is a different world, and C.J. Box has done a tremendous job of bringing us into it with this debut novel about a Game and Fish warden named Joe Pickett. Pickett stumbles into a mysterious situation that involves three murdered outfitters, endangered species, and constant suspense about what's happening, and who's involved. Box is at his best when he's writing about the landscape, and its people, and the fact that he's a Wyoming native definitely shows. But this story will carry you through to the end with the rich characters and little guy vs. the world intrigue. Good start, Chuck.
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Summary: This book will appeal to both sexes and even us city folk!
Review: 60% of the time, I am reading a British based mystery series. Of the series based in the United States, I have leaned towards the humorous ones, usually with female lead characters. Imagine my surprise when I decided to pick up, let alone read, a book involving a game warden in Wyoming. I found the character of Joe Pickett very appealing and the story involving. Others reviewers have already described the book well, but I wanted to add my two cents. What some feel is traditional, masculine material can be appreciate by women and the outdoor, rural environment by city dwellers. I am looking forward to your next release!
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Summary: A really good book
Review: I really enjoyed reading Open Season. It was a great page turner.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Believe It!
Review: The back cover of this book was covered with glowing comments, and I assumed that these comments referred to "Open Season". Apparently they didn't because I bought the book and found that it was less than memorable, to put it kindly. The plot is a stretch, the characters are insipid, and the ending is a foregone conclusion. The poor reader is asked to overlook cliches, maudlin pieces of dialog, and outright contradictions in the construction of this novel. Joe Pickett (the main character) is a hapless twit who is undeserving of the role he is given. In the future I will make it a point to avoid Joe Pickett like the plague.
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Summary: Pitch-perfect Wyoming mystery
Review: Mystery writers need a closed room. Not for writing privacy, but to regulate the flow of suspects in and out of a murder scene. Odd as it sounds, Wyoming is just a big closed room, a boundless place where nobody comes or goes without being noticed. That quality - plus its peculiarities of landscape, attitude and history - makes it a perfect place for murder. Margaret Coel is the doyenne of contemporary Wyoming mysteries (although a Colorado writer) with her Wind River intrigues, the Agatha Christie of the Big Empty. Author C.J. Box has thrown one more Wyoming mystery on the stack, but with a difference: He knows Wyoming the way a life-long native knows it. His debut, "Open Season," rings true as it gallops over the rugged terrain of environmentalism, small-town politics, outlander greed and exploitation so common to Wyoming. And when Box describes the real landscape of this almost-mythical state, you can rest assured it's dead on. Box's prose is most trenchant, of course, when he's writing about Wyoming. Landscape is not just the territory of the West's literary prose, but it can be found in the region's category fiction, too, proving just as important to genre tales as mainstream. Box nails the taste and smell of the place, and in the process, creates a sensory experience that can be rare in fast-paced, plot-driven crime fiction - without stalling the plot. He finds a way to weave the mysteries of landscape into the larger mystery at hand. The book's inclusion of excerpts from the Endangered Species Act probably doesn't warm anybody's cockles, except very perverse enviro-lawyers. But those deadly segments tend to serve as frontispieces for chapters and are not critical to the narrative, so are easily skipped. It's obvious why "Open Season" has such an easy grasp of the Cowboy State: Box has been a Wyoming ranch hand, fishing guide, survey crewman, small-town newspaper reporter and a high-level tourism executive - all before becoming CEO of a Cheyenne corporation that promotes Rocky Mountain tourism in Europe. When he describes the sound of a bullet slamming into meat, he knows how it sounds. And when he describes a claustrophobic high-country canyon where it's possible to touch both walls, it's because he's been there.
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