Open Season (A Joe Pickett Novel)

this author seems to be mild mannered but just you ruffle his feathers and you open up a hornets nest i am hooked on this author the down home feel is quickly discarded when trouble rears his ugly head and his own sense of what is right and wrong i must interject at this point note isaid his own sense of what is right and wrong

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.

Dare I say "different" when speaking of a mystery/thriller? Just when I think I have seen every possible setting, hero/anti-hero, cozy, hard-boiled, police procedural out there; along comes "Open Season" with something new and fresh. Joe Pickett is as nice as they come, but prone to embarrassing errors. His family plays a starring role, not only with him but also as an integral part of the story. His wife and two daughters don't play cute characters or trite supporting roles; there would be no story without them.Edgar-nominated, Mr. Box's debut novel is set in a Wyoming that could only be written by a native. Someone said a writer should write what he knows about; Mr. Box has followed the advice. He makes Wyoming so real, you can smell the air and feel the forest. He is also honest enough to admit all parts of Wyoming are not nature's paradise, but strikingly ugly. He understands and depicts the particular politics that are unique to small or under-populated states. When almost everyone is on a first name basis with the governor, everyone is in on some kind of a deal or another. Joe is particularly shocked and offended when a body is found on his backyard woodpile. When three other bodies are found at the victim's outfitters camp, the case is closed quickly and neatly as a falling out among the four of them. Joe is not satisfied, no one is quite who they seem to be, and corruption at every level is gradually exposed. The closer Joe comes to a solution, the more his family is endangered until tension is at the snapping point. "Open Season" has an agenda: the Endangered Species Act and is it a well thought out piece of legislation. Mr. Box thinks not, and whatever the reader believes, the book will give them something to consider. The characterizations are excellent; I was surprised at how much I cared. "Open Season" has my vote for the best mystery of the year.

From the opening sentence this book captured me and refused to let go. C.J. Box has produced an exciting debut book and introduces us to Joe Pickett and his family.Joe Pickett is an incorruptible game warden in the wilds of Wyoming who is drawn into a dangerous situation after a man who has been shot stumbles into his backyard before dying from his wounds. The strange thing about the man is that he was carrying a cooler that had obviously contained animals of some kind, but they had escaped when the man had collapsed. Joe begins to investigate, trying to answer a few questions, such as: who shot him; what was in the cooler; why did the man choose his backyard. As he begins to investigate it becomes obvious that someone is working against him, trying to stop him from digging further.Another strong character is Sheridan, Joe's eight-year-old daughter. Quite often, authors have difficulty writing down to this age, giving them too much maturity making them an unbelievable character. This isn't the case here. Sheridan has an important role to play, yet she is given fears and beliefs that are common to her age group. This combined with believable reactions to stressful situations gives her role immense credibility.This story contains a bit of everything, a good intriguing puzzle, a beautiful and well-described setting, a strong, yet endearingly flawed lead character and an ecological dilemma. There's just enough of each factor to tie up into a very enjoyable book.

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. ....

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