Joe Pickett 01 Open Season

Joe Pickett is a Wyoming game warden who, with the shot of a rifle, is thrust into a race to save not only an endangered species, but to unravel a mystery that threatens the life and the family he loves.

The debut of a writer hailed by Tony Hillerman as a greatstoryteller -- the first book in an engaging and gritty mystery series featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett.

C. J. Box has hit the bull's eye his first time up.
--Margaret Maron

A fabulous debut -- a great crime novel and a great modern-day Western rolled into one. All the elements are here -- a tremendous sense of Wyoming's scenic grandeur, vivid characters, and a high-stakes plot that moves like a rifle bullet. C. J. Box is a keeper.
--Lee Child

Few first mysteries have been welcomed as enthusiastically as Open Season, or with better cause.

When a high-powered bullet hits living flesh, it makes a distinctive -pow-WHOP-sound that is unmistakable even at tremendous distance. And so it begins for Joe Pickett, a Wyoming game warden who, with the shot of a rifle, is thrust into a race to save not only an endangered species, but also the life and family he loves.

C. J. Box knows the wilderness and he knows how to create a wonderfully authentic, vividly alive sense of place. Most of all, he knows how to create a memorable new hero: a man who is full of failings, but strong and honorable. This is mystery writing at its best-and the beginning of a brilliant new career.

Author Biography: C. J. Box, a native of Wyoming, has worked as a ranch hand, a surveyor, a fishing guide, and as a small-town newspaper reporter and editor. Box is the president and CEO of Rocky Mountain International Corporation, a company that coordinates marketing for the state tourism departments of Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Idaho.

Denver Post

Box's varn is full of the kind of grittiness a reader can expect from a place where blood and bone are not just the stuff of crime fiction, but of sport and survival, too.

The first novel in the thrilling series featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett from #1 New York Times bestselling author C. J. Box. Joe Pickett is the new game warden in Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, a town where nearly everyone hunts and the game warden—especially one like Joe who won't take bribes or look the other way—is far from popular. When he finds a local hunting outfitter dead, splayed out on the woodpile behind his state-owned home, he takes it personally. There had to be a reason that the outfitter, with whom he's had run-ins before, chose his backyard, his woodpile to die in. Even after the'outfitter murders,'as they have been dubbed by the local press after the discovery of the two more bodies, are solved, Joe continues to investigate, uneasy with the easy explanation offered by the local police. As Joe digs deeper into the murders, he soon discovers that the outfitter brought more than death to his backdoor: he brought Joe an endangered species, thought to be extinct, which is now living in his woodpile. But if word of the existence of this endangered species gets out, it will destroy any chance of InterWest, a multi-national natural gas company, building an oil pipeline that would bring the company billions of dollars across Wyoming, through the mountains and forests of Twelve Sleep. The closer Joe comes to the truth behind the outfitter murders, the endangered species and InterWest, the closer he comes to losing everything he holds dear. The first Joe Pickett novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author C. J. Box. Joe Pickett is the new game warden in Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, a town where nearly everyone hunts and the game warden—especially one like Joe who won't take bribes or look the other way—is far from popular. When he finds a local hunting outfitter dead, splayed out on the woodpile behind his state-owned home, he takes it personally. There had to be a reason that the outfitter, with whom he's had run-ins before, chose his backyard, his woodpile to die in. Even after the "outfitter murders," as they have been dubbed by the local press after the discovery of the two more bodies, are solved, Joe continues to investigate, uneasy with the easy explanation offered by the local police. As Joe digs deeper into the murders, he soon discovers that the outfitter brought more than death to his backdoor: he brought Joe an endangered species, thought to be extinct, which is now living in his woodpile. But if word of the existence of this endangered species gets out, it will destroy any chance of InterWest, a multi-national natural gas company, building an oil pipeline that would bring the company billions of dollars across Wyoming, through the mountains and forests of Twelve Sleep. The closer Joe comes to the truth behind the outfitter murders, the endangered species and InterWest, the closer he comes to losing everything he holds dear. The debut of a writer hailed by Tony Hillerman as "a greatstoryteller"--The first book in an engaging and gritty mystery series featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett. Few first mysteries have been welcomed as enthusiastically as Open Season, or with better cause. "When a high-powered bullet hits living flesh, it makes a distinctive -pow-WHOP-sound that is unmistakable even at tremendous distance." And so it begins for Joe Pickett, a Wyoming game warden who, with the shot of a rifle, is thrust into a race to save not only an endangered species, but also the life and family he loves. C.J. Box knows the wilderness and he knows how to create a wonderfully authentic, vividly alive sense of place. Most of all, he knows how to create a memorable new hero: a man who is full of failings, but strong and honorable. This is mystery writing at its best-and the beginning of a brilliant new career. Author Biography: C.J. Box, a native of Wyoming, has worked as a ranch hand, a surveyor, a fishing guide, and as a small-town newspaper reporter and editor. Box is the president and CEO of Rocky Mountain International Corporation, a company that coordinates marketing for the state tourism departments of Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Idaho "Joe Pickett, a Wyoming game warden who, with the shot of a rifle, is thrust into a race to save not only an endangered species, but also the life and the family he loves."--Jacket