Wolf Pack (2019)
By C. J. Box
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 370 pages
★★★★
If, like me, you've burned through the back catalog of numerous mystery writers and are looking for a new addiction, C. J. Box might be your new rodeo. His Joe Pickett series has swollen to 20 titles. Pickett is not your typical detective; he's a game warden who hit the jackpot by marrying Marybeth and raising a stable of daughters. The youngest, Lucy, is about to leave the homestead for college. Life is good in Shoestring, Wyoming.
Wyoming game wardens do more than write tickets; they also have limited law enforcement powers. Joe has a solid circle of friends and colleagues, a good thing as game wardens are more tolerated than liked. It's safe to say that animal rights and game laws aren't popular in Big Sky regions.*
The Wolf Pack shows how small problems can become huge when the human body count begins to rival the number of deer jackings. Two small things set things in motion. Katelyn Hamm, a warden in an adjoining district, tells Joe that someone is using sophisticated drones to hunt wildlife. Secondly, Herman, a cranky rancher calls Joe to tell him wolves have been killing his livestock. Problem: Officially there aren't any wolves in this section of Wyoming. Herman begs to differ; he has a wolf in his stock trailer that he lassoed!
Things get stickier when the drone is traced to Tom Kinnison, who no one including Joe knows. Joe's search leads him to Bill Hill, a recent arrival and recluse living in a gated compound. His son Justin happens to be dating Lucy. Who is Hill exactly? That’s also a local conundrum. Joe's attempt to hold a civil conversation with him comes to naught. Worse, a string of murders sounds alarms as they have all the earmarks of being both brutal and random. To top it off, four Hispanic individuals have been throwing their money and weight around. It's not unusual to see Hispanic visitors in Wyoming, but there's something about these four that unsettles Joe. Hill remains uncooperative but violence makes its way to his compound. Moreover, Joe cannot fathom why he has been ordered to cease his attempts to cite Hill for obvious game violations. He can't even figure out who issued such an order though he naturally suspects Hill is linked to local troubles. Who or why would anyone in authority ask Joe to stop investigating crimes. He is told that he has no need to know.
When, however, some of Joe's friends and associates are gunned down and he fears that Lucy could be in jeopardy, Joe is prepared to ignore his instructions. If you read enough C.J. Box novels you will learn that Joe has a pattern of doing runarounds of higher authorities and that he is usually correct in doing so. But not even Joe or Marybeth, whose high-level job provides her with access to those who can tell her things she's not supposed to know, can enlighten them fully. Rumors fly that the assassins were working for Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, yet it’s difficult to imagine any of the victims would so connected.
Wolf Pack is a fast-paced novel that is filled with uncertainties that will keep you turning the pages and holding your breath. Wyoming is not exactly the ends of the earth, but it is vast and far from the centers of federal control. One of the attractions of Box novels is that they often contain vestiges of the Wild West mythos. It helps to know that the Wild West never really existed as most people imagine in the first place, so why not yield to a novelistic convention that’s more Zane Gray than U.S. history? There are indeed legitimate questions of credibility, but they are analogous to Louise Penny novels that make you wonder how one small village can spawn so many murders!
Wolf Pack straddles the line between mystery and thriller, so perhaps it’s best to dust off grains of doubt and surrender to its heart-thumping dangers and action. It certainly has one of most vicious killers in recent fiction and leave us with a gruesome, yet satisfying denouement.
Rob Weir
* Technically, mine is a partial anachronism. Neighboring Montana officially bears the “Big Sky Country” nickname. Call it literary license!
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