Books › Open season(A Joe Pickett Novel #1)
Open season(A Joe Pickett Novel #1)
304 pages
A rugged, atmospheric mystery where a fiercely moral game warden battles corporate greed in the unforgiving Wyoming wilderness.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like stepping into the crisp, unforgiving air of the Wyoming mountains, where the landscape is as dangerous as the people. It delivers a deeply grounded, atmospheric experience that balances the quiet beauty of the natural world with the sudden, sharp violence of human greed. The narrative moves at a brisk, steady clip, anchored by a protagonist whose stubborn moral compass makes him both admirable and incredibly vulnerable. There is a gritty, unpretentious texture to the prose that perfectly matches the rugged setting, immersing you in a world of muddy boots, cold rifles, and corporate corruption. It will thoroughly delight fans of modern Westerns and outdoor mysteries who crave a suspenseful, character-driven story about an ordinary man pushed to his absolute limits to protect his family and the wild places he loves.
- Mood
- rugged
- atmospheric
- tense
- isolated
- Tone
- earnest
- pragmatic
- gritty
- suspenseful
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- moral integrity · environmental conservation · corporate greed · protecting family · the modern American West
- The writing
- Lean, unpretentious, and deeply rooted in the physical landscape of the Wyoming wilderness.
- The arc
- Begins with principled isolation and unease, escalating into high-stakes desperation, and resolving in hard-won, bruised justice.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love modern Westerns, outdoor mysteries, and flawed but deeply moral protagonists fighting corrupt systems.
Content notes
- gun violence
- animal death
- murder
- peril involving children
About the book
The first Joe Pickett novel from 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.
Description from Open Library.
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