Synopses & Reviews
Joe Picket returns, this time to the wilds of Yellowstone National Park. Deftly plotted and full of intrigue, Free Fire is C. J. Box's best novel yet.
Joe Pickett, having recently been fired from his job as a Wyoming game warden, is working on his father-in-law's ranch when he receives a call from the governor's office. Governor Rulon-a devious but down-home politico-has a special request, one Joe knows he can't refuse. For weeks, the headlines have been abuzz with the story of Clay McCann, a lawyer who slaughtered four campers in cold blood in a far-off corner of Yellowstone National Park. After the murders, McCann immediately turned himself in at the nearest park ranger station. It seemed like a slam-dunk case for law enforcement-except that the crimes were committed in a thin sliver of land with zero residents and overlapping jurisdiction, the so-called free-fire zone. McCann had taken advantage of a loophole in the law: neither the state of Wyoming nor the federal government can try him for his crime, so he walks out of prison a free man.
Governor Rulon, sensitive to the rising tide of public outrage over the McCann case, wants his own investigation into the murders. The governor will reinstate Joe as a game warden if he'll go to Yellowstone to investigate. Joe, happy to get his badge back, even under these circumstances, agrees. However, it quickly becomes clear to Joe that McCann is deeply involved with some illegal activity taking place in the park-something tremendously lucrative and unusually dangerous. As Joe and his partner Nate Romanowski search in the unlikeliest places to find the key to the murders, they find out that it may be hidden in the rugged terrain of the park itself.
Synopsis
A Joe Pickett novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Endangered.
Joe Picketts been hired to investigate one of the most cold-blooded mass killings in Wyoming history. Attorney Clay McCann admitted to slaughtering four campers in a back-country corner of Yellowstone National Parka free-fire” zone with no residents or jurisdiction. In this remote fifty-square-mile stretch a man can literally get away with murder. Now McCanns a free man, and Picketts about to discover his motiveone buried in Yellowstones rugged terrain, and as dangerous as the man who wants to keep it hidden.
About the Author
C.J. Box is the New York Times bestselling author of the Joe Pickett novels, including Endangered and Stone Cold, in addition to four stand-alone novels. He has won the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre. 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, the Barry Award, and is an Edgar Award and L.A. Times Book Prize finalist. He lives in Wyoming.