Customer Reviews

Blood Trail (Center Point Platinum Mystery (Large Print))

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In my opinion, Joe Pickett is becoming one of the great characters of modern American crime fiction, approaching the likes of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch and even James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux. All of them are strong but vulnerable, stubborn, idealistic, and singularly unimpressed with the bureaucrats and politicians they must sometimes answer to. They're also distinct renegades unafraid to buck the system when justice demands it. In "Blood Trail", the eighth Joe Pickett novel, the Wyoming game warden is forced to work with his nemesis and so-called boss Randy Pope, the soulless head of the game and fish department who fired Pickett in "In Plain Sight." They're appointed by the governor to investigate a series of murders - beginning with the gutted, flayed and beheaded body of a hunter found hanging in a tree - that may have been orchestrated by a fanatical anti-hunting activist. As always, CJ Box expertly evokes the beauty and majesty of his native Wyoming in "Blood Trail", and also presents both sides of the hunting vs animal rights issue without intruding on the story. I think this is one of the more exciting Joe Pickett novels, and it is beautifully written to boot.

Also recommended: A Stranger Lies There - winner of the Malice Domestic Award for best first mystery, it features a vivid desert backdrop that should please fans of CJ Box's colorful Wyoming settings.

BLOOD TRAIL (Licensed Invest-Joe Pickett-Wyoming-Cont) - G+

Box, C.J. - 9th in series

Putnam, 2008 - US Hardcover - ISBN: 9780399154881

First Sentence: I am a hunter, a bestower of dignity.

Joe Pickett, now working director for the Governor of Wyoming, is called to go to a murder scene where an elk hunter has been murdered and his body treated like the quarry he sought. This isn't the first such killing.

The Governor puts Joe on the multi-agency investigation, in spite of the antipathy between him and his former boss, Randy Pope. While dealing with a killer and more deaths, Joe has to find out if the appearance in Wyoming of anti-hunting radical Klamath Moore is involved.

In order to track down the killer, Joe persuades the Governor to release his friend, and expert tracker, Nate Romanowski, who is being held in federal prison awaiting trial.

Joe Pickett is a character I really like and it is clear Box knows him well. Pickett is strongly tied to his small, nuclear family of wife and two daughters, he's loyal to his friends, and believes in what he does. One character also made the observation that Pickett cares more for the dead than he does for the living, both animals and humans. All the elements of the story emphasize these points.

Box does get a bit preach-y when it comes to the distinction of true hunters who how respect the land and animals versus ego hunters and town dwellers, but I also felt he made some good points.

What did disappoint me, and thus lowered my rating, was the obvious nature of some of the clues. I knew where the story was going way too early. I was also disappointed in the direction he took with the character of Nate. The book is violent but it's also quite suspenseful.

Box is a very talented writer; I find his book stay with me long after I've closed the covers. I'm a still a fan and look forward to seeing where Box is taking his characters.

Joe Pickett loved being the game warden of the Saddlestring District, but he was fired by Randy Pope, the Wyoming State Director. Now he is a troubleshooter for the governor and a substitute for game wardens throughout the state who are ill or on vacation. Currently it is elk hunting season; one of the hunters has been killed, skinned, and found tied upside down to a tree branch missing his head.

The governor wants Joe to find the perpetrator before he is forced to close state lands from hunters and ask the Feds to do likewise. Unlike his usual on the job distant professionalism, Pope is hands on leading the investigation. When they go into the woods tracking the killer, he is missing though his friend is there as back-up. The tracker is killed. At about the same time shots are fired and Randy's friend dies. Activist Klamath Moore, some feds feels terrorist is more descriptive, and his wife Shannon arrive in town stirring up those people against hunting because he believes killing animals for sports is ethically apprehensible. Joe begins to figure out what is going on when he gets his friend Nate released from federal custody but he doesn't want to believe where the evidence points. .

The Joe Pickett police procedurals are unique action-packed thrillers starring a hero who thinks outside of the box, which is why he lost his job. The villain is multifaceted as he is leaving a message behind for hunters who will NRA the killer with disdain and readers who will feel sorry for that person. However, this is Joe's series and he is determined to bring justice to the killer knowing that this time it will hurt badly as he sympathizes with the culprit and believes he may know the person. Using a secondary character, C .J. Box also warns the audience that the natural beauty of the parks are in jeopardy by those whose strategic planning is less than fifteen minutes as instant satisfaction is all that matters.

Harriet Klausner

BLOOD TRAIL, featuring Mr. Box's folksy Joe Pickett, perfectly blends mesmerizing suspense, unique characters, a non-stop, action-filled, twisting plot into a page-turning fervor.

I told my wife (who has also read all of the author's previous novels) that I was going to stay up an extra hour to finish BLOOD TRAIL. The conclusion was so dynamic, even to the very last page, when I finally crawled into bed I could not fall asleep.

My mind had been permanently transcended into the deep woods of Wyoming. Visions of Joe Pickett, Nate Romanowski, Randy Pope and the many other deftly crafted characters continued to stir my thoughts.

I heartily agree with the other reviewers that BLOOD TRAIL is Mr. Box's most compelling novel to date...and one of the best I have read all year!

I generally like the efforts of CJ Box, but this work is not up to standard. Maybe he had some pressure on a deadline, and my initial reaction of "he mailed it in" is not a fair assessment. However, given his body of work, I found Blood Trail to be a very poor representation of his talent.

The characters are cartoon-ish, the plot line predictable, and some of the dialogue is excruciating. I listened to the audio book, and I also found the narration to be wanting. I couldn't wait for the book to be over with so I could move on. I kept hoping it would get better towards the end, but no.

Try another CJ Box title if you want to get an accurate measure of his work.

I have always enjoyed Box's Joe Pickett novels. Blood Trail however is a clunker. There are just too many bodies and soon it simply gets tedious. A mixed message is given about hunting. One the one hand you get the preaching of an animal first activist - who hates rats. On the other hand you get Pickett's point of view for pro-hunting. Unfortunately the one person who stands up against the animals first activist is Pickett's teenage daughter who isn't exactly prohunting with guns but is prohunting with falcons. The mystery was easy to figure out when Pickett recalls that his former boss who is now in jail ran a hunting camp in which the Native American wife of the activist was the camp cook (and "hostess"). All in all its a bloody mess and best left on the shelf. I tossed it in the trash.

This was my second C.J. Box book and the beginning of what is now a complete collection that has been well read!

The story snags your attention from the first page, if you are an outdoorsy type person it will bring shivers to your skin, your heart will beat a little faster, and your mind will begin to wonder if on your next elk hunt if you could be the next target.

Men are murdered in very gruesome manners, of course Joe Picket is called in to investigate, on each victim is a poker chip left by the killer. One by one the killer picks off these men with skill and precision. The author takes you on a journey were your mind races with possible suspects only to have each one fall through. The person who never crosses your mind turns out to be the killer, killing not for the fun of it but for good ol' revenge. The book twists and turns, the action is none stop. The author gives away no clue to the killers identity until the end when everyone finds out. It will stop you in your tracks, you will reread the page again. But thats right, the killer is.....

It would ruin the suspence, get this book and I promise you won't put it down until the last page is turned!! And don't be skipping ahead to see who the killer is...let the anticipation build!

A couple of decades back, author and television critic Cleveland Amory got into hot water with the hunting community when he sarcastically introduced the "Hunt The Hunter Hunt Club."

Hunters didn't think this was very funny. Amory, as the founder of the anti-hunting organization Fund For Animals, didn't care.

In Blood Trail, author C.J. Box brings back Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett to investigate a brutal and macabre killing and "field-dressing" of a big game hunter. When this act is repeated, the governor closes the big game hunting season on public land in Wyoming. In such a pro-hunting state, this didn't go over too well with hunters and outfitters.

But when one of Joe Pickett's best friends is also killed, Joe takes it personally.

These activities also bring interesting anti-hunting characters out of the woodwork. Klamath Moore, with his anti-hunting entourage, invades Wyoming. During a presentation at a local school. Moore outlines his philosophy:

"'I firmly believe that every time a rich man pulls the trigger and an animal dies, we as human beings die just a little bit as well. In nature, predators kill only the sick and weak. But hunters kill the biggest, healthiest, and strongest in the herd, which plays hell with the balance of nature. We will never achieve moral greatness until this practice is abolished'" Moore proclaims (p. 123). Needless to say, many of the students in class disagree.

But this is a theme that continues through this chapter in Joe Pickett's life: why do people hunt, what are the consequences of hunting, and how can hunting be justified in a modern society?

I'd like to see the late Cleveland Amory and C.J. Box debate the issue!

Now a criticism. This is book 8 in the Joe Pickett saga (my fourth). Characters and events from previous books are reintroduced in Blood Trail. I had read three previous books, and I felt that I was missing something here. I think this would be a difficult book to start with. I've noticed the same thing in the later books by Nevada Barr (her Anna Pigeon series, starting with Track of the Cat. What is the relationship between the governor and Joe? How did Joe's friend Nate get into custody? How could a weaselly character like Randy Pope get promoted to director of Wyoming Game and Fish?

My previous Joe Pickett books were Open Season, Savage Run, and Out of Range. I guess I should fill in the gaps by reading a few more books. Interestingly, I don't feel deprived because of this! But I recommend that the novice reader start at the beginning, and progress though Joe Pickett's life in the proper order.

It's a good year indeed when we are blessed with two books by C. J. Box. The stand-alone work BLUE HEAVEN was published early in 2008 and garnered a hint of the commercial success that Box has deserved since he first began setting pen to paper with OPEN SEASON. The newly released BLOOD TRAIL, his latest Joe Pickett novel, provides a point for jumping onto the series for those readers who have yet to become acquainted with this addicting character.

Pickett's appeal is his fallibility. He is competent, capable, dogged and determined. But his seeming penchant for accidentally destroying government vehicles (he averages about one a year) has earned him the enmity of his former boss, Randy Pope, when he was a state game warden and was one of many reasons why he was fired from that position. At the same time, Pickett is extraordinarily lucky. For one thing, he's still alive, still married to a wonderful woman, and, thanks to the somewhat vague reasoning of Wyoming governor Spencer Rulon, still employed by the state.

Rulon is a crusty, eccentric customer who is used to shooting from the hip and aiming with instinct. He has appointed Pickett to a special position as a game warden at large in Wyoming, reporting only to the governor's office. On a rare day off, Pickett is called in to investigate the grisly murder of a hunter whose body is found field dressed and mounted at a mountain camp. The investigation throws Pickett together with Pope, his former boss and eternal nemesis, as well as Phil Kiner, the man who replaced Pickett as the game warden of the Saddlestring District.

As the men make an uneasy, and not always successful, attempt to maintain a civil relationship during the course of their investigation, it slowly becomes clear that whoever is responsible for the hunter's murder is also to blame for two other hunting deaths that had been classified as accidents. When Rulon ends hunting season early, chaos erupts in a state that is heavily dependent upon hunting revenues for its livelihood. To make matters worse, a radical environmentalist who champions anti-hunting initiatives appears in the state and begins conducting efforts that actually encourage the killer.

Pickett's investigation leads him to believe that there is an invisible link that joins the murdered hunters, but is doubly surprised to find that the murder victims are connected to a case from his own past and to that of his enigmatic friend Nate Romanowski. As the mysterious killer, who seemingly has the ability to hide in plain sight, continues the string of murders, Pickett embarks on a dangerous and ultimately deadly course to see that justice, however roughly, is done. By the time BLOOD TRAIL concludes, Pickett's life and circumstances are forever and irrevocably changed.

C. J. Box, to put it simply, is a marvelous author, worth reading and keeping for every book, every word, that he writes. It appears that the under-appreciation he and his quietly stunning work have received to date may be coming to an end. If he has escaped your notice prior to now, read BLOOD TRAIL and set aside a few weeks to catch up on his past novels. You will marvel at his wordcraft and characterization, while rabidly anticipating what is to come.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Like all of the books in this series I would strongly suggest reading these books in order, starting with the initial Joe Pickett adventure Open Season as parts of previous novels are always given away in subsequent ones and the case is no different with Blood Trail. If you've read all these adventures I'd also suggest books by the author Ben Rehder. Buck Fever is book one in a series of adventures (there are six at the time of this review) set in Blanco County Texas with a very similar character to Joe Pickett in game warden John Marlin who could practically be his twin separated at birth and sent to Texas. That like this series is very good, check them both out!

Blood Trail easily has the most interesting basic plot of any of Joe's adventures being a hunter is hunting the hunters and doing to their corpses what hunters do to that of bucks and other widlife. Unfortunatly though I have to say that theme it isn't taken to the extent it could be and like with most Pickett adventures the predictability factor means you will no doubt work out who the assasin of hunters is long before Joe does. However predictability doesn't mean unenjoyable, this like all the others is still a great read.

There were a few minor hiccups with Blood Trail. The first was a continuality thing. At one stage we are in the classroom with Joe's 16 year old daughter Sheridan, listening to extremist animal rights campaigner Moore, then we the reader are taken to Joe's home with Sheridan overhearing a telephone call and next chapter we are back in the classroom in the same real time as before picking up Moore's speech where it left off.

I also found the fact Box used the same last name for Klamath Moore as controversial journalist Michael Moore a bit of obvious having a go at Michael Moore. Especially when the hunter rural gun carrying community characters in this novel are the biggest opponents of Michael Moore in real life. Like Michael Moore or loathe him I thought this was a bit of a cheap shot especially when Klamath was portrayed with the characteristics that the extremist Michael Moore haters label him with. ie, made to be passionate but not overly intelligent, self centred, more interested in his ego and with weak untrue arguments (predators only kill weak and sick etc). I think Box missed a great opportunity to debate the whole hunting issue by not presenting both sides of the argument equally.

Blood Trail also provides an opportunity for for fans of this series to see a few of the villains from the past novels get their comeuppance. Check out the Joe Pickett series today, it's very good. Also check out author Ben Rehder's Blanco County series as well.