Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

The Poacher’s Son

Posted on April 27, 2025 by smellincoffee

Game Warden Joe Pickett Mike Bowditch just got a call about a bear attacking a man’s prized pig.  Mike’s just a rookie serving the Game and Fish department of the State of Maine in the middle of nowhere, so taking … Continue reading →

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Vicious Circle

Posted on April 26, 2025 by smellincoffee

Warning: this review contains substantial spoilers for Endangered. Two years ago, rodeo star and all-around-terrible-human being Dallas Cates was imprisoned  for multiple accounts of wanton elk destruction, an almost anticlimactic end to his family’s war against the state of Wyoming … Continue reading →

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Off the Grid

Posted on April 25, 2025 by smellincoffee

Warning: This review contains partial/mild spoilers for Endangered.  While attending a rally for a governor’s race on behalf of his wife-the-librarian who needs the presumed gubernatorial winner’s support to renovate her library,  Game Warden Joe Pickett bumps into the current … Continue reading →

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Shots Fired

Posted on April 24, 2025 by smellincoffee

Shots Fired is a bit of a stray on the CJ Box book ranch, a collection of short stories rather than a Pickett novel – and some of the stories don’t even involve Joe!  Interestingly, there’s also a bit of … Continue reading →

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Endangered

Posted on April 23, 2025 by smellincoffee

Game Warden Joe Pickett has just discovered a massacre. Someone has slaughtered over twenty sage grouse – nearly an entire breeding group – and left their bodies to rot, shooting them just for malevolent thrills.  Joe goes to work processing … Continue reading →

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Stone Cold

Posted on April 22, 2025 by smellincoffee

There’s something rotten in the state of Wyoming – and specifically, the county of Medicine Wheel, in the northern reaches of the state.  Seems in the last few years some financial grandee retired there and has been buying up everything, … Continue reading →

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Breaking Point

Posted on April 21, 2025 by smellincoffee

While on patrol counting herds and listening for sounds of poachers,  Game Warden Joe Pickett notices a Forestry fence that’s been cut. Upon investigation the warden realizes this fence was cut relatively recently, and whoever did it may still be … Continue reading →

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The Professionals

Posted on April 10, 2025 by smellincoffee

Since 1915,  Martin Falconer has been flying birds above France in His Majesty’s Royal Flying Corps,  but  as the days pass he’s beginning to wonder how much longer he can buck the odds.  The aerial carnage has gotten especially bad … Continue reading →

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Selma: An Architectural Field Guide

Posted on April 8, 2025 by smellincoffee

Note: Yes, this has nothing to do with Read of England, but the author sent me a copy for review on publication. Additionally, I assisted in some of the background research and fact-checking in the book’s final stages. My hometown … Continue reading →

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Vigilante Rewilding

Posted on April 4, 2025 by smellincoffee

While scouting for science books that could also fit into Read of England a few weeks back, I saw Brining Back the Beaver and was instantly on board. I like beavers, though I’m not entirely sure why: perhaps it was … Continue reading →

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