Suspense

KIRKUS REVIEWA second standalone from the chronicler of Twelve Sleep County Game Warden Joe Pickett (Cold Wind, 2011, etc.) takes a Montana cop deep into the wilds of Yellowstone National Park in the hope of protecting his teenaged son from a determined killer.The evidence says that Hank Winters died in a house fire shortly after downing several stiff drinks. But Cody Hoyt, an investigator for the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff?s Department, doesn?t believe the evidence. Hank was Cody?s AA sponsor, and he knows that although he might have fallen off the wagon himself, his adamantine mentor never would have done so. If Hank didn?t drink from the uncapped flask found nearby, then someone must have planted itĄand that rules out both accident and suicide. Kicked off the case, Cody still keeps working it with the help of his friend and colleague Larry Olson, who soon uncovers a nationwide chain of murders with a remarkably similar m.o. Even more chilling, however, is a clue that convinces Cody that the killer is headed to a backcountry expedition through Yellowstone Park, the very same place Cody?s son Justin has been taken by His Richness Walt Franck, the developer who?s engaged to Cody?s ex Jenny. As Cody laboriously makes his way closer to the park, dodging suspicious cops and murder attempts, Box keeps cutting away to the expedition organized by outfitter Jed McCarthy, whose party of a dozen amateur adventurers is methodically whittled away one by one. Can Cody, a refugee from the Denver PD who?s no great outdoorsman himself, catch up with the group and identify the killer in time to save his son?s life?Once again, Box provides the complete suspense package: unobtrusively slick detection, buckets of surprises and mounting thrills, all amid his trademark settings in the majestic high country.

(2011)Introduction to Cody Hoyt, an alcoholic cop who is trying to find a serial killer who apparently is targeting AA members. Turns out nothing like that at all, actually a woman who is searching for a crashed airplane in Yellowstone Park that contains drug money. When she finds it all the cash has been chewed up by animals into confetti used for nests. Lot of dead bodies by the time Cody finds the killer.Publisher's Weekly: In this sprawling, ambitious stand-alone from Edgar-winner Box (Three Weeks to Say Goodbye), Cody Hoyt, an investigator in the sheriff's department of Montana's Lewis and Clark County, and a (barely) recovering alcoholic, goes in search of the man who burned his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor to death. What at first appears to be a random crime broadens in scope to include multiple murders, the unresolved disappearance of a private plane in Yellowstone National Park, and a Mexican drug lord. The action culminates with a chase into the "back of beyond," a remote wilderness area of Yellowstone, where Hoyt's son, Justin, who's in his late teens, is on an expedition with his new stepfather. Box makes the rugged expanses of the American West even more palpably compelling than his largely appealing characters; he provides backstories for even the most minor ones. This padding and some improbable plot twists tend to undercut the suspense, but Box's many fans won't mind a bit. 125,000 first printing; 10-city author tour.

Good for the bus basically a little bit of twist here a little bit of twist there I don't like Cody much bit of a standard deviant cup. ( )

C.J. Box is a good writer but I didn’t like the protagonist of this book combined with an ending I was no fond of means I might not move onto the next book. ( )