Blue Heaven

In the woods outside a remote town in Northern Idaho, four retired Los Angeles police officers thought they were committing an untraceable murder. They didn’t count on Annie and William Taylor, ages 12 and 10, seeing the whole thing. The children flee for their lives as the four corrupt officers hunt them down, determined to silence them. When the criminals take over the sheriff’s investigation of the children’s disappearance, Annie and William have no choice but to turn to Jess Rawlins, a stoic, aging rancher, for protection. Jess must use all of his knowledge and skills to decide who he can trust, and how to bring the murderous police officers to justice.


Box, best known for his Joe Pickett mysteries, has written a fine show more stand-alone novel, filled with suspense and vivid human emotions. Blue Heaven has a complex plot, narrated from many perspectives. A clumsier writer could have tangled the many story lines here into a confusing mess, but Box is skilled at creating memorable characters with distinctive voices, making the novel a fast paced and thrilling ride. show less

When 2 young children witness what they think looks like a man being shot by 4 others, they run away into the wilderness surrounding their North Idaho town. Not knowing who the men are, they know they've been seen and are being chased. Meanwhile, a recently retired police detective from a small Southern California town arrives to conduct his own investigation in an attempt to finally solve the only case that he never closed during his career - the robbery of the armoured cars filled with cash leaving a horse racing track. A man was killed in the robbery, and several track employees are in jail, but the detective doesn't believe they are guilty. He's finally tracked down several marked $100 bills from the robbery which were all passed show more through the local bank in this same Idaho town. Meanwhile, a 3rd generation rancher in the area, one of the few remaining, has a tense meeting with the banker at the same local bank. He is having trouble making his loan payments but doesn't want to sell out for the easy cash, like so many of his neighbors have, to the hordes of newcomers to the area - largely retired Los Angeles police officers. When news of the missing children gets out, some of these former LAPD officers volunteer to assist in the effort to locate the children.

This was a great, fast-paced thriller. When done well, the idea of bad cops is very chilling. After all, if we can't trust the police, then who can we trust? The only thing I didn't care for was the ending. This book would be a great project for a creative writing class - come up with a new ending. But, recommended overall. show less

I raced through this novel from a few years ago, one of my finds at our book sale. Anything by C. J. Box is an automatic grab after all, and this one really had my heart pounding. It begins with two children, Annie and her younger brother William, witnessing a murder. Then one of the killers sees them and the chase is on.

The setting is a small town in Idaho that is in transition because a large number of retired cops have moved there from Los Angeles. They've brought money but even as they claim to want a different, less stressful life, they've brought big city habits with them. Some have built enormous mansions and they drive their SUVs through town like they own the place. The people who loved their little town and surrounding ranches show more aren't necessarily happy about the changes or the people who brought them about. When word gets out that the kids are missing, they take over the investigation from the rather weak police chief who is out of his depth.

Our hero is a rancher who is in financial trouble and about to lose his beloved ranch. It's been in the family for generations but he has hit hard times. He's in his early 60s and he's a kind man who suffered when he had to let his last ranch hand go. I loved Jess Rawlins. He and the kids make the whole book in my mind.

This is a thriller with a subplot of another retired cop trying to trace money from a robbery at Santa Anita racetrack several years earlier in which a young guard was killed, leaving a wife and kids. All of the characters, good and evil and somewhere in-between, are skillfully depicted so you get more and more tense as the story plays out. At times I was breathless when the action heated up and I worried about the good guys.

One character is a staple in every small town I've ever known. In this town she's a rural mail carrier but she could be anything. She's a thoughtless gossip who craves attention and has no compassion for the people she's hurting. She also thinks she's attractive (not!) and has her eye on Jess Rawlins. And she's loud, so when she's spreading gossip she lets everyone around her hear what her imagination has come up with.

I happened to read this at the time the 16 year old California girl and her kidnapper were found in Idaho. That added even more color to the background as I read, especially when the horse riders who saw and reported them were interviewed. I could imagine how those two couples would resent the intrusion of city people into their lives.

This is an action-filled thriller with great characters and I hope you'll read it and other C. J. Box novels.

Highly recommended
Source: book sale show less

When 12-year-old Annie Taylor takes her younger brother fishing in the woods of North Idaho the children witness the murder of ‘a wavy-haired man’ and are soon running, literally, for their lives. They manage to flag down a car belonging to an old boyfriend of their mother’s and just as they think themselves safe things take another bad turn. At the same time a retired police officer comes to town because there might be a link to an old case he investigated but never solved. Slowly people start to wonder if there’s any connection between all these events and the fact that retired Californian cops have moved almost en masse to the area.

In this standalone novel Box has created a ripping yarn. It grabbed my attention immediately show more with a combination of beautifully described places and fast-paced action sequences. I’ve never been to North Idaho but I almost feel like I’ve seen it thanks to the beauty of Box’s words. On the very first page as he sets the scene where the two children will encounter the murderers he writes


When the grey-black fists of storm clouds pushed across the sun, the light muted in the forest and erased the defining edges of the shadows, and the forest plunged into a dispiriting murk. The ground was black, spongy in the forest and sloppy on the trail. Their shoes made sucking sounds as they slogged upstream

I felt like I was right there watching the kids trudge through the mud and, if anything, the writing gets better as the book progresses.

There’s a cast of memorable, credible characters too and the book doesn’t really rely on a single protagonist. Jess Rawlins, an ageing ranch owner struggling to keep his land in a changing world is certainly a key character but there are other interesting people too. Eduardo Villatorro, the retired cop on the trail of the most bothersome case of his career and Monica Taylor, the children’s mother, both learn a lot about themselves as events unfold. And the bad guys too are well-rounded, believable people.

I’ve not heard of C J Box before and therefore have not read any of the Joe Pickett series for which he is well known. However, I can thoroughly recommend this standalone story which is perfectly encapsulated between two covers: an increasingly rare treat from this reader’s perspective.


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This was a suspenseful and unsettling book. Two young kids, a 12-year-old girl and her younger brother, witness a brutal murder, only to be seen by the murderers. They flee, but are quickly pursued. Soon they realize they cannot go home, and have nowhere else to go.

The bad guys in the story are ex-cops who may or may not have committed a huge robbery and murder eight years before, and every time I listened to a chapter from the ex-policemen's point-of-view, I was terrified - they're creepy and evil.

Very exciting - I sat in my car to finish chapters several times!

Blue Heaven
C.J. Box

12 year old Annie Taylor along with her younger brother William have taken off from their home in Kootenai Bay, Idaho, to go on a fishing; because they’re angry with their mother, Monica, they don’t tell her of their impromptu expedition. But they inadvertently witness three men brutally murdering a fourth; worse, the killers see them. Annie and Wlliam run, pursued and shot at by the murderers. Eventually, they hide in the barn of Jess Rawlins, a 63 year old rancher whose family have ranched in the area for 3 generations; Jess is the last of a vanishing breed. Jess finds the children, believes their story, and sets out to do whatever he can to rescue them and frustrate the killers.

Box is well known for his series show more featuring Joe Pickett, a Wyoming game warden. Box’s premise was original and intriguing, although his writing was not that good. However, he improved with successive books, and his plots were always interesting, almost always involving some issue of importance to the West, mostly some variation on environmental protection vs development. Box, who lives in Wyoming, clearly loves his state and wrote both feelingly and lyrically about the beauties of its mountains.

Blue Heaven--so called because the Coeur d’Alene area has become a favorite retirement area for police officers, especially from Los Angeles--is a stand alone novel of surprising complexity and plot development. It’s extremely well written, establishes tension from the get-go, and I really got caught up in both the children’s fate and the way the story played out. I was surprised by the ending and could not believe that I was in tears over any novel written by Box. Interesting they were, yes, but emotionally gripping? I never would have believed he was capable of it until I read this book.

I think that the Joe Pickett series is written out; Box has done really well in branching out into stand alone novels where he has more freedom to develop new story lines and to experiment with different types of protagonists. I hope that this book, which is excellent, is a harbinger of more such to come. Highly recommended. show less

I have read reviews that loved C.J. Box’s newest novel -Blue Heaven- and reviews that hated it. Knowing my opinion sometimes differs, I had to read the newest in this Wyoming writer’s endeavors. With tough likeable kids and characters that you might find on small town streets in the West, I think Box succeeded with a page-turning triumph. He doesn’t follow his previous character, Joe Pickett’s travels, but starts anew with a likely and known scenario in the west; the influx of people from the big cities. Added to that the new people are mostly retired LAPD, toss in a single mother, gossip-mongering locals, a inept sheriff, a solid old rancher and missing children and he turns out a gripping tour of northern Idaho. This story show more will grab you on the first page and won’t let you go until the last. show less