Vicious Circle

Starred review from January 16, 2017
At the start of Edgar-winner Box’s crackling 17th Joe Pickett novel (after 2016’s Off the Grid), the Wyoming game warden is aboard a small plane in search of hunter Dave Farkus, “currently an unemployed layabout collecting dubious disability checks,” who has gone on the run in the frozen high country. With the aid of an infrared spotting device, Joe locates Dave—right before the fugitive is fatally shot. Joe quickly settles on a suspect: erstwhile rodeo star Dallas Cates, just released from the prison where Joe helped send him 18 months earlier. Dallas’s motive? Scorched-earth revenge on Joe. To that end, the diabolically clever Dallas has recruited a gang of psychopathic miscreants for the ages. A sequence in which a female meth head attempts to kill Joe’s wife and daughters with an ax ranks as the scariest in any Pickett novel to date; a close second goes to a confrontation between Joe and Dallas’s imprisoned, quadriplegic mother. In short, this outing is the most suspenseful yet in this world-class series, setting a new standard for Box. Author tour. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency.

February 1, 2017
In his 17th adventure, Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett (Off the Grid, 2016, etc.) goes another 15 rounds with surviving members of the toxic Cates family.Joe has run into ex-everything Dave Farkus too many times in too many unsavory ways to expect any favors from him. So he's doubly surprised when Farkus phones him from Stockman's Bar to say he's overheard a conversation about Joe and his family before he's abruptly cut off. Joe's concern turns to alarm when Farkus disappears from a hunting trip, and his blood is curdled by the discoveries of dead Farkus and disconcertingly alive Dallas Cates, the disgraced rodeo star who ran off with Joe's daughter April, dumped her out of his truck, and ended up in the prison he's just been released from, hungry for vengeance for the deaths of his father and two brothers. County attorney Dulcie Schalk has no trouble linking Dallas to the dead man, but high-priced defense attorney Marcus Hand, now married to Joe's scheming, useless mother-in-law, Miss Vankueren, has even less trouble getting the charges dropped, leaving Dallas and his two hirelings free to roam the trails of Ten Sleep County, virtually immune from prosecution, as they ponder new ways to menace the Picketts. Can Joe gather enough evidence to neutralize Dallas before the charismatic sociopath, whose paralyzed mother, Brenda, is the queen bee of the Wyoming Department of Corrections' Women's Center, neutralizes Joe and his whole family? Bracingly familiar pleasures expertly packaged. The two families' fraught history, tangled enough to fuel a whole season of high-country soap opera, keeps this installment from being the best place to take the initial plunge into the franchise, but first-timers will be intrigued and fans amply rewarded.

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February 15, 2017
In the seventeenth installment of the Joe Pickett series, the Wyoming game warden faces a threat to what matters most: his family. Dallas Cates, the ex-rodeo star sent to prison after an attack on Joe's adopted daughter, April, has been released and is back in Saddlestring with revenge on his mind. Joe hates Cates and is fully aware of the danger Cates poses, but at the same time feels guilt about his own complicity in the way the law was bent to get him sent away in the first placehe even sympathizes with Cates' rage somewhat. Fortunately, Nate Romanowski, finally back on the grid, is on hand to play id to Joe's superego. We've noted previously how the fully fleshed family dynamic is one of this series' enduring strengths, and that pays dividends here as we viscerally feel Joe's fear for his loved ones and his powerlessness to protect them. Box masterfully tightens the suspense until we're caught in a vicious circle of our own and unable to stop reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

October 15, 2016

In his 17th outing, game warden Joe Pickett faces down the Cates family, local nasties who once threatened his daughter. Box's latest, Off the Grid, was a No. 1 New York Times best seller, and he's won Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe, and Barry awards, so what are you waiting for?

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2017

In the 17th installment of the "Joe Pickett" series (after Off the Grid), the Wyoming game warden faces familiar adversaries including the Cates family and his mother-in-law, Missy. In a previous antagonistic encounter with the Cates family (in Endangered), Joe had managed to survive but he isn't sure what will happen now that Dallas Cates has been released from prison, but surely it will be revenge. A twisted, interlocked series of events that includes the murder of a hunting guide, a kidnapping, a hefty insurance policy, the stalking of Joe's family and Missy's new husband, lead Joe to face off against Dallas and his quadriplegic mother, Brenda, who is incarcerated in the Wyoming state prison for women. The outcome is explosive with a sustained impact on the Pickett family. VERDICT The unexpected, suspenseful turns will keep readers enthralled. Another winner for Box. [See Prepub Alert, 9/26/16.]--Patricia Ann Owens, formerly with Illinois Eastern Community Colls., Mt. Carmel

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2017

In the 17th installment of the "Joe Pickett" series (after Off the Grid), the Wyoming game warden faces familiar adversaries including the Cates family and his mother-in-law, Missy. In a previous antagonistic encounter with the Cates family (in Endangered), Joe had managed to survive but he isn't sure what will happen now that Dallas Cates has been released from prison, but surely it will be revenge. A twisted, interlocked series of events that includes the murder of a hunting guide, a kidnapping, a hefty insurance policy, the stalking of Joe's family and Missy's new husband, lead Joe to face off against Dallas and his quadriplegic mother, Brenda, who is incarcerated in the Wyoming state prison for women. The outcome is explosive with a sustained impact on the Pickett family. VERDICT The unexpected, suspenseful turns will keep readers enthralled. Another winner for Box. [See Prepub Alert, 9/26/16.]--Patricia Ann Owens, formerly with Illinois Eastern Community Colls., Mt. Carmel

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.