Trophy Hunt

I don't read a detective book series for brilliant insights into our relationship with the larger cosmos. Joe Pickett would not have much patience with that, and the books are better for it.

Also, a cow is one thing, but you don't fuck with a man's dog. Or a woman's dog, Harvey. Just don't do it.

The truth is out there but the doggedly pragmatic Joe Pickett is struggling to find it.

I returned for my fourth visit with Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett to find that he's has gone all Mulder and Scully on me. Within the first few pages mutilated animals possibly dropped from the sky. From there, things got weirder and bloodier, with people being added to the casualties.

Still, I was visiting with Joe Pickett so at least I knew I'll have an explanation by the end of the book that doesn't include alien probes in uncomfortable places.

C. J. Box's novels are a comfort read for me. I love his ability to take me to the wilds of Wyoming and feel like I'm there and seeing it through the eyes of someone who loves and understands it. I also like show more meeting up again with the ensemble cast of good guys, not-so-good guys, weird guys and strong women, centred around Joe, his wife and his two young daughters. As the books progress there people and the relationships between them have grown in believable non-soap-opera ways.

"Trophy Hunt" has a rich mix of land-grabbing realtors, energy companies competing for mineral rights, cattle mutilations, crop circles and uninvited UFO experts. Joe is reluctantly in the middle of everything by virtue of having found the first mutilation, knowing many of the players, distrusting the sheriff and being nominated by his boss to take part in a Task Force.

The Task Force opens part two of this slightly-darker-than-usual mystery with this speech:
“GENTLEMEN,” COUNTY ATTORNEY Robey Hersig said, “let’s convene the first-ever strategy meeting of the newly formed Northern Wyoming Murder and Mutilations Task Force.”
Sheriff Barnum said, “Jesus, I hate that name.”
This manages to get across the pomposity of big-boys playing you're-in-MY-gang-now, the gallows humour needed to survive dealing daily with the atrocious and how people who've been there too many times before react in reality.

I liked the tension in this book and the development of Joe's wife as a key actor in the story. The plot was complicated without becoming labyrinthine. The violence was graphic but mostly off-stage and the whole thing was dappled with humour and great scenery.

Joe is the rock around which this river of chaos flows. Sometimes I felt like I wanted him to be a little less static but then I recognised he'd stop being Joe. I love his dogged pragmatism. Watching him examine and discredit an alleged crop circle was a delight.

My only dissatisfaction was that the resolution was a little too dependent on crazy people doing crazy things and with even Joe Pickett being not so much open-minded as having had his mind wedged ajar by the unexplained. show less

KIRKUS REVIEWDead fish and game are only the appetizers for Warden Joe Pickett?s biggest problems in his fourth case.It?s obvious that cavalier local fisherman Jeff O?Bannon is to blame for the fish floating belly-up in Crazy Woman Creek. But who?s killed the elk, excised the flesh from half his face, and dragged off his enormous carcass? Who?s killed 12 head of Don Hawkins?s cattle in exactly the same way? And has this slaughter of innocents been nothing more than preparation for the remarkably similar murders of ranch hand Tuff Montegue and water-engineering exec Stuart Tanner? Robey Hersig, the County Attorney heading the hastily assembled Northern Wyoming Murder and Mutilations Task Force, lists the likeliest causes: ?BIRDS . . . show more CULTS . . . DISTURBED INDIVIDUALS . . . ARABS . . . GOVERNMENT AGENTS . . . GRIZZLY BEAR . . . ALIENS.? But Joe, skeptical of all these explanations, demands the right to investigate on his own. Even though his mortal enemy, Sheriff Bud Barnum, keeps reminding him he?s only a fish-and-game warden, nobody can deny that Joe?s pulled off some spectacular victories in the past (Winterkill, 2003, etc.).Not this time, though. The fact-based mutilations are so outr? you just know the answer?s going to be a letdown, and it is�even though Joe and his family sweat out suspenseful duels with a self-styled paranormal expert and a trusted neighbor. show less

Joe Pickett is a US Game Warden in Twelve Sleep County, Wyoming, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. He doesn't get paid very much and lives paycheck to paycheck. He's deeply in love with his family and always tries to do the right thing.

Joe is teaching his daughters to fish on a day off when they come across a dead moose. A dead animal is nothing new to him or his girls by the nature of their lives, but the moose has been surgically butchered and parts of it are missing. Joe has no explanation for what happened to the moose, but he hopes that will be the end of it. A few days later a small herd of cattle is found dead and mutilated. The sheriff attributes the attacks and mutilations to a grizzly bear, but game warden Joe show more Pickett knows that the cuts on the cattle were made with a smooth blade, just like those on the moose. The killer is definitely not a grizzly bear.

Each time something happens, Joe feels an energy in the air that there's something of the supernatural in the Wyoming forests and mountains. Some aspects of the investigation are left unexplained, and the reader is unsure as to whether there may be a down-to-earth explanation or whether "woo woo" forces are operating.

Trophy Hunt is a highly readable novel about a real family and their various tribulations of daily life, as well as being an involving, knowledgeable account of the natural environment and its preservation. Box isn't afraid to take chances and kill off or hurt central characters in these books and this makes you continually wonder if Joe Picket and his family will survive to the end of each novel.

I love the characters and the the fact that it's set against the beautiful, unforgiving landscape of Wyoming. I definitely plan to read more of the series. show less

Game warden Joe Pickett discovers the mutilated body of a moose while out fishing with his daughters. Then several mutilated cattle are discovered on a local ranch. The next mutilated bodies to turn up are human. Joe finds himself on a task force comprised of local law enforcement, FBI, and prosecutors, as they join forces to investigate these seemingly related crimes.

The book has some aspects of a detective novel, a police procedural, and even a cozy, but it definitely tilts toward the thriller end of the crime spectrum. The suspense wasn't enough to make me jumpy, but it was enough to make the book hard to put down. I liked the overlap between Joe's personal and professional life. His wife and daughters had significant roles in the show more book, and I liked the family dynamics.

I haven't read the first three books in the series. While this book works fine as a stand-alone, there are frequent references to events from the earlier books in the series. Some of these references may be spoilers for the earlier books.

This was a 4-star read most of the way through, but it fizzled out at the end. The threads of the story seemed to get tangled up, and Box didn't quite manage to smooth out the knots. show less

My very favorite Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett is investigating a string of animal mutilations when he becomes involved in the investigation of a couple of area murders. Normally this would be the jurisdiction of other local authorities, but these two murders have characteristics strikingly consistent with the animal mutilations: the two bodies have been damaged in exactly the same way. These crimes are horrific and terrifying to area residents. Joe will bump heads with the same local authorities as normal, because he has a tendency to want to do things correctly, morally right, and by the book where some of the other officers don't seem to care about that. The goodness in Joe is one of the reasons that I enjoy this series so show more much.

Besides Joe, the best thing in this book is how big the roles that his daughter Sheridan and his friend Nate Romanowski play. It's fun to watch Sheridan grow up and become more perceptive to her surroundings as these stories progress. Nate is a falconer and a loner and a bit of an oddity to the other folks around, and I love everything about him and his place in these stories. He has some secrets and some darker ways of obtaining the truth than Joe does, but the two work very well together.

My least favorite thing about this story is the amount of "woo-woo" in it. That's what Joe calls it. What I mean is that there is a lot of talk of supernatural, magical type stuff with regard to the cause of the animal and human deaths. Lots of area folks think maybe there is some magic involved or something. Just like Joe, I sort of rolled my eyes at all of it. (Even though it does have a place in the story.)

A fun thing about this one: my little town, where I live, plays a big role in the story too! That happens so rarely that when I heard my town come up and then keep popping up, I was overjoyed. This is probably very nerdy of me.

This one didn't pull on my feelings and emotions like Winterkill did for reasons that I don't want to spoil (in case you haven't read Winterkill). Just, the emotional attachment to the injured parties and those in danger wasn't there this time, because this one was a little less directly dangerous to his family and friends-but only a little bit less dangerous.

Trophy Hunt takes place approximately a year-ish after the horrific events of Winterkill. Joe and his wife Marybeth are barely managing to get by on Joe's game warden salary, so Marybeth begins to take on a career of her own. Sheridan is twelve years old and has tons of grit. Lucy is now seven years old and has a big role in this story as well. The Wyoming setting is still strong and a huge, huge reason why I keep coming back to this series.

Audiobook Notes: I love David Chandler's narration of this series so much and I'm so glad that I took the chance on the first one because I can't imagine not listening to it. David Chandler's narration has completely become Joe Pickett to me, and I fangirl so hard over the way he narrates Nate Romanowski: gravelly and a little dark. I can't recommend these audiobooks more.

Title: Trophy Hunt by C.J. Box
Series: Joe Pickett #4
Narrated by: David Chandler
Publisher: Recorded Books
Length: 11 hours, 0 minutes, Unabridged show less

Mutilated cows. Mulilated people. This is what has Joe Pickett's interest in the 4th novel about this Wyoming game warden. Who's doing it? And, more importantly why?

Things are not calm in the Pickett household. Marybeth is being flirted with by her boss. Sheridan has more dreams which are seemingly portents to the future. Lucy is growing up and Maxine has inexplicably changed color!

Excellent book!