The Disappeared

Starred review from February 5, 2018
In bestseller Box’s superlative 18th novel featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett (after 2017’s Vicious Circle), the state’s new governor, Colter Allen, orders Joe, who did many special investigations for the previous governor, to find out what happened to the CEO of a high-profile British advertising agency, Kate Shelford-Longden, who has gone missing after vacationing at the Silver Creek Ranch outside Saratoga. Given suspiciously few resources and very little time, Joe is happy to accept the help of both his 23-year-old daughter, Sheridan, who works as a wrangler at the ranch, and comrade Nate Romanowski, who predictably approaches the case from beyond the law’s boundaries. Meanwhile, the lethal Gaylen Kessel, the head security agent for the wind energy company that has taken over the region, makes trouble. In the end, Sheridan and Nate must deal out rough justice to the malefactors, while the book’s key environmental issue enhances the satisfying conclusion. Also welcome are Box’s underrated touches of wry humor, generally overlooked as one of his strengths. Series fans and newcomers alike will be rewarded. Author tour. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency.

March 1, 2018
A new governor demanding special favors means a new assignment and new problems for Wyoming Fish and Game Warden Joe Pickett.It's not Gov. Colter Allen's fault that high-profile British ad-agency CEO Kate Shelford-Longden disappeared somewhere between Silver Creek Ranch, the ultra-posh dude ranch where she'd just spent a week been pampered within an inch of her life, and the Denver airport several months ago. But his wife and other folks are leaning on him, so he leans on Joe (Vicious Circle, 2017, etc.) to drive the 300 miles to Saratoga in the depth of a January freeze and get the answers that have eluded Carbon County Sheriff Ron Neal and the Wyoming Department of Criminal Investigation. Bullied by the governor, Joe agrees to look into the case. Luckily, he has an in: His daughter, Sheridan, who's been working at Silver Creek as a horse wrangler, got fairly close to the missing woman and knows all the ins and outs of the place. The staff at Silver Creek has been vetted more closely than most vice presidential candidates, but several contractors with access to the ranch seem suspicious enough to make likely suspects. Before Joe can make any real progress, though, the case notes he's been given by Connor Hanlon, the governor's dislikable chief of staff, are stolen, and his old friend Nate Romanowski, the "outlaw falconer" he's been specifically ordered to keep away from, drops in to ask Joe a serious, albeit apparently unrelated, favor. The case turns out, rather disappointingly, to be two cases. But it's a treat to see Joe's daughter pulled into working with her father; there's an unexpected role for his reptilian mother-in-law, the imperishable Missy Vankueren; a false lead he follows will have readers whooping with laughter; and both cases are wound up in highly satisfactory ways.Best of all, the final pages find Box's hard-used hero both triumphantly successful and in deep trouble once again in perhaps the most finely balanced conclusion in this rewarding series.

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February 15, 2018
Game warden Joe Pickett is on special assignment again. This time, Wyoming's new governor has sent him south, to the Upper North Platte River Valley, tasking him with finding a high-profile English guest who disappeared without a trace from a four-star dude ranch. Despite help from his daughter, Sheridan, now a horse wrangler at the ranch, and old friend Nate Romanowski, Joe doesn't like his odds of successin fact, he soon wonders whether he's been set up to fail. As their investigation leads to a fish hatchery (where the lethal Nate creatively and hilariously expands his interrogation tactics), a wind farm, a cabin in the woods, and a sawmill with a so-called wigwam burner, the government-hating Nate pursues a conspiracy theory of his ownwhich harkens back to the author'sCold Wind (2011) and addresses a hot-button issue of the modern West. The eighteenth installment of this hugely popular series delivers everything fans want: a compelling mystery, high-stakes action in a beautiful setting, and enjoyably humorous interaction between characters they've come to know and love. There's a reason we keep coming back for more. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Box, a number-one New York Times best-seller, has sold more than 10 million books in the U.S. to datehe's about to sell a lot more.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

October 15, 2017

Back after six top-five New York Times best sellers in a row, Wyoming game warden Joe Picket must find a high-profile female British executive who disappeared while visiting a fancy guest ranch.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.