Customer Reviews

Nowhere to Run (A Joe Pickett Novel)

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Joe Pickett has only one more week to go in the territory around Baggs, Wyoming, before he will be heading back to take up his position of a game warden in Twelve Sleep Country. Back to his family. But in all good conscience Joe can't ignore the reports he's been hearing about campsites being vandalized and an illegally poached elk being stolen from the hunters who tracked the wounded animal and found the carcass neatly butchered. Pickett figures it will take him a week to make his way around the Sierra Madre of Southern Wyoming and then he's homeward bound. What he finds when he gets deep into the mountains makes him shiver with fear because something just isn't right. By the time he finds who is responsible for the strange happenings in the territory his life hangs in the balance and he's completely cut off from any help.

What a great book this was. Such incredible writing prowess by author C. J. Box that my heart was pounding while I read the account of the danger Joe Pickett was in. The descriptions of the magnificent mountains, lakes and valleys in Wyoming were so good I could visualize them without any problem at all. I liked the character of Joe mainly because he seemed like such a normal individual. Not a super hero, just a really dedicated man doing his job to the very best of his ability. The book seems at first to be a rather simple premise of a game warden protecting the area he is assigned to, but it slowly opens out into a much more complex story involving not just inter-state political rivalries, but also political agendas on a national level.

The concepts of the rights of the individual in these United States is at the heart of this story. It was a wonderful vehicle for making the arguments concerning how much governmental control is too much and how much independence from that control can safely be allowed. All in all, a very thought provoking novel. This was the first Joe Pickett novel for me to read, but I have now bought the first book of the series, Open Season (A Joe Pickett Novel), and put Winterkill (A Joe Pickett Novel) on my Kindle. I can't wait for my husband to start reading about Joe Pickett. I'm thinking we will end up buying everything we can get our hands on written by C. J. Box.

As a suburban liberal blue state female, I'm not sure if I fit the typical profile of C. J. Box's readers, but I find his Joe Pickett series to be one of the best series of mystery/thrillers out there. I literally couldn't put this one down once I started in on it. I have read a number of titles in the series, completely out of order, so you can easily read this one even if you haven't read the earlier Pickett novels. I thought this one was one of the best so far. In a nutshell, Joe Pickett is a Wyoming game warden, working a temporary assignment in an isolated town where strange things are happening in the surrounding mountains, including an Olympic calibre female runner who went missing years ago. Joe just can't leave without investigating, and rides on horseback into the forest to check into the rumors. There he finds and confronts two mountain men, but when he demands to see their hunting licenses, he's in more trouble than he can ever imagine. These two brothers are deadly--what exactly are they doing in one of the most remote places in the country? and have they kidnapped the missing runner? As usual, this novel is an incredibly suspenseful page-turner. Box also takes time to offer glimpses of Pickett's complicated family life, in which his wife and daughters are trying to integrate a foster daughter into their family, and his rich mother-in-law is constantly interfering in his business. Box not only entertains, he also makes the reader think about political issues such as government involvement in ordinary life and the degree in which people should have freedom to live as they wish, even if they don't conform to society's norms. Highly recommended for Box fans and fans of suspense novels in general.

In his tenth Joe Pickett novel, C. J. Box continues to deliver the goods. There's an action-oriented plot with plenty of violence. Joe has a super-wife managing three difficult teenagers and an out-of-control mother-in-law. He's in trouble with his law enforcement colleagues and he still can't shoot a pistol straight. Though he's a state game warden, Joe manages to get involved in crimes that go well beyond his job description.

In addition to these elements, C. J. Box has inserted an interesting ethical and political discussion into the heart of this novel. It's subversive of the genre in an interesting way, much as the Terminator who was not allowed to kill in James Cameron's T2. Unlike T2, the choices grow more naturally out of the character - - Joe Pickett is an upright law enforcer who has to confront a situation where the law may be unjust. This happens a few times in the Sherlock Holmes stories too, where Conan Doyle has Holmes let the perpetrators go. C. J. Box does not choose this easy route but a richer, probably less satisfying denouement.

If you're looking for pure escapism in your fiction, the ending may not satisfy you. But if you don't mind thinking a bit when you put the book down, you'll find that it's Box's best novel yet.

After a long period of exile, Joe Pickett is a week away from returning home when he stubbornly puts himself in harm's way. He encounters a couple of very adroit twins on a mountain and gets himself shot full of arrows and almost killed, all over a fishing license. (Joe, of course, is nominally a fish and wildlife warden.)

This is an unusual story, pitting the forces of the government and powerful, rich people against ordinary persons, setting up Joe and his mysterious buddy Nate to have to make decisions more like a Hobson's choice. It is an extremely powerful tale raising all kinds of moral issues.

As in past novels in the series, descriptions of the wildlife and Wyoming mountains and lakes are both natural and beautiful. The characters are richly drawn and the dialogue taut, and the book is recommended.

I've never read anything by C.J. Box, so I had an open mind. Despite that, I enjoyed "Nowhere to Run" even more than I expected to! It's modern, yet there's a flavor of the Old West. I found myself really relating to Joe and his eventual predicament, but I really don't think I would've made the same decision he did. What a surprise to find Something Big To Think About in my entertainment!

To me, "Nowhere to Run" evokes Nevada Barr's solitary, independent, nature-oriented law enforcement books starring Park Ranger Anna Pigeon before, frankly, they got a little strange. I definitely plan to look up more from this author, and I hope he continues along this line.

This is the tenth Joe Pickett book by C. J. Box and the best of all, I think. The other nine were very good, but the suspense, the slow unraveling of the story, kept me spellbound. Joe, a forest ranger in Wyoming, is finishing an assignment some distance from his home and family. He is prepared to leave, but he first wants to check out the report of an elk, killed by arrows, but butchered before the hunters can reach it. This is one of several unexplained happenings in the mountains of northern Wyoming.

This is also the area where a young woman runner training for the Olympics disappeared without a trace the year before. Joe watches for any sign of her while he rides in the largely uncharted region. When he happens upon a gangly taciturn fisherman who apparently has no fishing license, his sense of duty requires him to take the man in. At that point the story leads us to the man's camp and his twin brother. These men become the center of a most absorbing and sometimes scary tale.

Even as he leaves the forest and eventually arrives home, he cannot leave behind his experience, nor will a number of interested law enforcement agencies allow him to. The resolution of the mystery and the choices Joe must make create a taut and ultimately satisfying story. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

You can read other reviews if you want a rehash of the plot. What I'll say is that "Nowhere to Run" grips you from the beginning and doesn't let go. I had such a time putting this book down and getting to my daily life. It's been a long time since I was so enamored of a book. This is my first C. J. Box book and I can assure you that I will be reading more. I like his writing. He made me feel like I was there in the beautiful and rugged mountains with Joe Pickett. It started out like a very simple story but turned into a thought-provoking look at the rights of the individual versus the rights of government. It isn't all black and white. I'm enthusiastically passing this one on to my son and daughter to read.

Nowhere to Run

When a new CJ Box novel shows up, I grab it. He is a master of the craft--one of the few writers I can't put down. Each word hooks me into the next; each chapter into the next, and each novel into the next.

If there were one more Joe Pickett novel out there I'd be well into it by now because I've already devoured all ten, both of CJ Box's non-Pickett novels, and Box's travel guide. The only trouble is, there are no more. I hope CJ Box fixes that real soon. Meanwhile, I must take "Nowhere to Run" back to the library so somebody else can read it. Or maybe I'll just read it again and pay the late fee.

The protagonists in many standard thrillers fall into one of two categories: omnipotent, or alcoholic. CJ Box puts that standard to shame. His character Joe Pickett is flawed but Joe Pickett's character is not, if that makes any sense. That is, Joe Picket makes mistakes, makes enemies of people who can hurt him, and wrecks the boss's vehicles too many times. He takes risks he never should take and doesn't always get away with it. He knows the difference between law and justice. He goes for the law with unmatched zeal, usually to his own detriment. He's a devoted family man who would jump in front of a train to save somebody he loves.

But somehow the bad guys always receive justice whether it's legal or not. It's satisfying for those of us fed up with bad guys getting off on technicalities or wasting untold taxpayer dollars on multiple trials for unspeakable crimes committed in competing jurisdictions.

Each Joe Pickett novel builds on the last and loops back to its predecessors, but each stands alone perfectly. Someone choosing out of the middle of the pack would find no confusion from essential detail buried earlier in the series. "Nowhere to Run" is no exception. It is perfectly satisfying all by itself, but there is another Pickett thriller hatching in CJ Box's brain, and the clues are obvious.

"Nowhere to Run" is set in late 2009, judging from subtle clues in dialog and narrative. It is well-framed in relevant issues of the day and cleverly exposes both sides of controversial points of view while condemning or promoting neither. (Whose woods these are I think I know -- which makes it all the more delicious. Heh, heh, heh!)

CJ Box knows the political and economic landscape as well as he does the geographical one where his novels are set. Pickett works in a fictional arena reflective of a real if not specific bureaucracy, as anyone who has worked in such an environment will quickly appreciate. It's one of the qualities that make Joe Pickett stories so believable.

Joe Pickett is a devoted family man with a long suffering wife and several good but believably troublesome daughters. Everything about them rings true. I know people just like them, and they are real.

Every character, villain or no, is brilliantly crafted and no doubt based on somebody walking around on two legs. Even minor or indirectly referenced ones: for example, Pickett mentions an attorney character named Marcus Hand who wears buckskins in the court room. Put the search string `Wyoming Famous Attorney' in Google's image search engine and see who comes up first.

Many of CJ Box's most memorable characters thread from one novel to the next, but even incidental ones are fully fleshed out, vividly portrayed, and believable. Husbands frustrated with their mothers-in-law will no doubt recognize Marybeth Pickett's mother. Nate Romanowski is a stand-in for everyman's inner prejudice against legal injustice and penchant for illegal justice. Pick a character--you'll know somebody like that.

Sometimes a little clerical error creeps in. No doubt CJ Box knows what some copy editor doesn't, that a Freedom Arms .454 Casull revolver has one cylinder and five chambers, not five cylinders. OK, forget it.

Hurry up, CJ! I need a reload. You got anymore Pickett in ya?

I love the C.J. Box novels. Have read them all and looked forward to this latest one. I liked almost everything about Nowhere to Run: the great descriptions, the surprises, the terrific writing, and the suspense. One of the reasons I've enjoyed the Joe Pickett novels is that I learn about people who dislike the government and why they feel that way. Hearing different points of view and opinions is interesting and educational. I also deplore events like Ruby Ridge and Waco.

However, the motivations for the characters seemed extreme. What happened to the Cline family was wrong. Shouldn't have happened. I can understand why the brothers would want to get away from the political world. They have every right to live in the mountains and live off the land. What they don't have a right to do is ambush a game warden who asks for their fishing license. They don't have the right to kill and butcher his horses and wound Jim, then leave him alone to either survive or die. The fact they didn't kill him doesn't make the men admirable. Attempting to make them sympathetic in the end doesn't work. Oh, I don't mind the killing of the four that were a private army, but I can't accept what they did to Joe and I don't feel as if killing them was a terrible deed or that Nate should be so upset.

SPOILER: Another problem: a young woman lives on the mountain to escape her father and boy friend who were too demanding. I don't admire a character who can't tell those demanding people to shut up and leave her alone. Instead, she runs off, knowing that her mother is hysterical and that volunteers are looking for her (she does regret that but she did cause it). Then at the end, Nate takes off so she can continue to hide. What a wimp she is.

I recommend this book because it is exciting. However, I wish Mr. Box wouldn't attempt to make killers into heroes.

I did, and the sun was coming up before I put the book down.No kidding, this is that good. It's a thriller, but it is also a discussion on ethics, on definitions of "right" and "wrong", and on how doing "the right thing" can be unforgiveably the wrong thing. I say nothing of the plot here. Other reviews do that, but I think one's best off reading it without prior knowledge of the plot. Coincidentally, I've just read THE POACHER'S SON, Paul Doiron's debut novel also about a game warden and it will be interesting to see how that series goes compared to this one.One more thing..this is my first C.J. Box novel and it's inspired me to order all nine of the preceding novels in the series.