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Category Archives: Reviews
Dark Sky
Joe Pickett has been asked by the governor to do something he’d….really, really, rather not do. The governor wants him to take Elon Musk hunting. Well, not really: the character’s name is Steve-Two, and he’s an eccentric techbro who … Continue reading
Wolf Pack
Joe Pickett is back on the job riding the ranges, documenting wolf expansion into the Bighorns, and trying to figure out who is using a large drone to frighten elk and deer herds around. He doesn’t just find the drone … Continue reading
Selma’s Mayor
Like most, if not all, Selmians, I was surprised and saddened by the sudden death of former Mayor George Evans. The mayor had been a figure in my life since I was a child, as he was the school superintendent … Continue reading
Short rounds: people and their places
In One No, Many Yeses, journalist and green activist Paul Kingsnorth detailed his journeys across the world, spending time with people who were actively resisting globalization — or rather, the disruptions that globalization caused in their local communities. Real England: … Continue reading
Posted in Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews
Tagged 1970s, 2000s, Alabama, American South, Britain, localism, Louisiana, memoir, Mississippi, Nonfiction 2025, politics, travel
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The Disappeared
Joe Pickett has a problem. The new governor, who is a bully and an ass, has discovered that Joe used to do a little investigating for the former governor on the sly, especially when local authorities were regarded as corrupt … Continue reading
Vicious Circle
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
Off the Grid
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
Shots Fired
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
Posted in historical fiction, Reviews
Tagged CJ Box, Fiction 2025, historical fiction, modern western, short story collection
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Endangered
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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