Publishers Weekly
★ 01/16/2017
At the start of Edgar-winner Box’s crackling 17th Joe Pickett novel (after 2016’s Off the Grid), the Wyoming game warden is aboard a small plane in search of hunter Dave Farkus, “currently an unemployed layabout collecting dubious disability checks,” who has gone on the run in the frozen high country. With the aid of an infrared spotting device, Joe locates Dave—right before the fugitive is fatally shot. Joe quickly settles on a suspect: erstwhile rodeo star Dallas Cates, just released from the prison where Joe helped send him 18 months earlier. Dallas’s motive? Scorched-earth revenge on Joe. To that end, the diabolically clever Dallas has recruited a gang of psychopathic miscreants for the ages. A sequence in which a female meth head attempts to kill Joe’s wife and daughters with an ax ranks as the scariest in any Pickett novel to date; a close second goes to a confrontation between Joe and Dallas’s imprisoned, quadriplegic mother. In short, this outing is the most suspenseful yet in this world-class series, setting a new standard for Box. Author tour. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Vicious Circle
“The unexpected, suspenseful turns will keep readers enthralled. Another winner for Box.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“Bracingly familiar pleasures expertly packaged...first-timers will be intrigued and fans amply rewarded.”—Kirkus Reviews
“This outing is the most suspenseful yet in this world-class series, setting a new standard for Box.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“We’ve noted previously how the fully fleshed family dynamic is one of this series’ enduring strengths, and that pays dividends here as we viscerally feel Joe’s fear for his loved ones and his powerlessness to protect them. Box masterfully tightens the suspense until we’re caught in a vicious circle of our own and unable to stop reading.”—Booklist
“C. J. Box is back and better than ever.”—Providence Journal
Praise for Off the Grid
“With this exceptional entry, Box solidifies his place at the upper end of the crime fiction pantheon.”—Publishers Weekly (starred, boxed review)
“Filled with high suspense, formidable characters, and an action-packed ending more vivid than most movies. Off the Grid never falters as Box again delivers an exceptional thriller.”—South Florida Sun-Sentinel
“You can’t help turning the pages and holding your breath until you find out where this scary, all-too-plausible caravan is heading.”—Kirkus Reviews
“A terrorist thriller with a uniquely western flair...This is a breakneck story that Pickett fans will want to read in one sitting.”—Booklist
“Picking up a new C. J. Box thriller is like spending quality time with family you love and have missed....It’s a rare thriller series that has characters grow and change. An exciting reading experience for both loyal fans as well as newcomers.”—Associated Press
“A terrific read yet again from C. J. Box.”—Suspense Magazine
“Box is a master.”—The Denver Post
“Off the Grid is a warning of sorts in that it shows how U.S. national security is vulnerable to a terrorist attack. It is not only informative, but challenges people’s minds as they learn about western culture. To date this might just be one of Box’s best.”—Military Press
“C. J. Box continues his spectacular roll with the darkly mesmerizing Off the Grid....Pickett and Romanowski have become the gold standard, playing off each other perfectly as different sides of the same coin.”—The Providence Journal
Library Journal
★ 02/15/2017
In the 17th installment of the "Joe Pickett" series (after Off the Grid), the Wyoming game warden faces familiar adversaries including the Cates family and his mother-in-law, Missy. In a previous antagonistic encounter with the Cates family (in Endangered), Joe had managed to survive but he isn't sure what will happen now that Dallas Cates has been released from prison, but surely it will be revenge. A twisted, interlocked series of events that includes the murder of a hunting guide, a kidnapping, a hefty insurance policy, the stalking of Joe's family and Missy's new husband, lead Joe to face off against Dallas and his quadriplegic mother, Brenda, who is incarcerated in the Wyoming state prison for women. The outcome is explosive with a sustained impact on the Pickett family. VERDICT The unexpected, suspenseful turns will keep readers enthralled. Another winner for Box. [See Prepub Alert, 9/26/16.]—Patricia Ann Owens, formerly with Illinois Eastern Community Colls., Mt. Carmel
Kirkus Reviews
2017-01-23
In his 17th adventure, Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett (Off the Grid, 2016, etc.) goes another 15 rounds with surviving members of the toxic Cates family.Joe has run into ex-everything Dave Farkus too many times in too many unsavory ways to expect any favors from him. So he's doubly surprised when Farkus phones him from Stockman's Bar to say he's overheard a conversation about Joe and his family before he's abruptly cut off. Joe's concern turns to alarm when Farkus disappears from a hunting trip, and his blood is curdled by the discoveries of dead Farkus and disconcertingly alive Dallas Cates, the disgraced rodeo star who ran off with Joe's daughter April, dumped her out of his truck, and ended up in the prison he's just been released from, hungry for vengeance for the deaths of his father and two brothers. County attorney Dulcie Schalk has no trouble linking Dallas to the dead man, but high-priced defense attorney Marcus Hand, now married to Joe's scheming, useless mother-in-law, Miss Vankueren, has even less trouble getting the charges dropped, leaving Dallas and his two hirelings free to roam the trails of Ten Sleep County, virtually immune from prosecution, as they ponder new ways to menace the Picketts. Can Joe gather enough evidence to neutralize Dallas before the charismatic sociopath, whose paralyzed mother, Brenda, is the queen bee of the Wyoming Department of Corrections' Women's Center, neutralizes Joe and his whole family? Bracingly familiar pleasures expertly packaged. The two families' fraught history, tangled enough to fuel a whole season of high-country soap opera, keeps this installment from being the best place to take the initial plunge into the franchise, but first-timers will be intrigued and fans amply rewarded.
