C.J. Box back with another ‘riveting’ mystery
BECCA MARTIN-BROWN
bmartin@nwadg.com
Asked how Joe Pickett came to be a hero, Wyoming author C.J. Box says: “It certainly wasn’t because I was planning a Wyoming game warden series that is now up to 20 books!”
“My first novel, ‘Open Season,’ was based on a circumstance where a species thought extinct was located in northwestern Wyoming,” he explains. “I was following the story as a journalist at the time, and I was fascinated with the implications of the discovery. I based the first novel [in 2001] on that, and the most logical protagonist turned out to be the local game warden. Plus, Wyoming game wardens are unique in their duties, districts and importance in a state where so many people hunt and fish.”
It wasn’t long before Joe Pickett, an everyman clad in faded Wranglers, a red Wyoming Game and Fish emblazoned shirt and his trademark beat-up gray Stetson Rancher hat, had captured the imagination of readers far beyond his beloved Bighorn Mountains. “Long Range,” the most recent installment, debuted March 22 at No. 2 on the New York Times Best Seller List and No. 1 on the Apple iBook list.
C. J. Box is the author of 27 novels, including the Joe Pickett series. He won the Edgar Alan Poe Award for Best Novel (“Blue Heaven” in 2009) as well as the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, two Barry Awards and the 2010 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Award for fiction. He was also awarded the 2016 Western Heritage Award for Literature by the National Cowboy Museum and the Spur Award from Western Writers of America for Best Contemporary Novel. The novels have been translated into 30 languages, and more than 10 million copies of his books have been sold in the U.S. and abroad.
(Courtesy Photo/C.J. Box)
Here’s the synopsis from Box’s website:
“When Joe Pickett is asked to join the rescue efforts for the victim of a startling grizzly attack, he reluctantly leaves his district behind. But just as Joe begins to suspect the attack is not what it seems, he is brought home by an emergency on his own turf. Someone has targeted a prominent local judge, shooting at him from a seemingly impossible distance. While the judge was not hit, his wife is severely wounded, and it is up to Joe to find answers. The search for the would-be assassin becomes personal when Joe’s best friend, Nate Romanowski falls under suspicion for the crime.”
“Reading C.J. Box is sheer delight,” The Washington Times wrote. “His latest ‘Long Range,’ is yet further proof that this master storyteller is one of today’s best writers working in any genre…What follows is a … fast-paced, riveting mystery thriller with so many twists and turns and surprises you never saw coming that it will have you on the edge of your seat all the way to the end. And if that’s not enough, C.J. Box writes about Wyoming in such beautiful prose you’d swear you can see it.”
What’s Up! asked Box four questions when he was expected to be the headliner at the 15th Books in Bloom. Now he’s the headliner at our virtual event.
Q. Did you know the judge had a wife? Had we met her before? How did she and her husband bubble up to be in the middle of this story?
A. No, she appears for the first time in “Long Range.” I like to turn the focus of each book to different (and sometimes peripheral) characters so the entire focus isn’t on Joe Pickett or Nate Romanowski. Judge Hewitt had been introduced five or six years ago as well as County Prosecutor Duane Patterson. Since the previous book (“Wolf Pack”) was so devastating to the community and had such a high body count, I wanted “Long Range” to be more intimate and involve characters we’ve met before.
C.J. Box’s most recent novel, “Long Range,” pits everyman Joe Pickett, a Wyoming game warden, against two killers, one human and one a grizzly bear.
(Courtesy Photo/C.J. Box)
Q. Do you find that your characters take on their own life and decide things with or without your intention?
A. Yes and no. Sometimes characters do what they’re told. Other times, they break out in new directions. Both Nate and Missy were introduced in “Winterkill,” the third book in the series. Both characters were so strong and so fun to write that they’ve appeared ever since.
Q. Is there a chronology of how new books happen for you? Does a scene come first or a lead or the crisis or the end?
A. I’m an outliner. I start with a couple of controversies or subjects I want to research and cover (in “Long Range” it’s ultra-long distance shooting and a rogue grizzly bear attack) and weave the story through those topics. That’s been my method since the first book. I never think ahead in the series, or hold things back. Each book is a stand-alone, in my mind.
Q. I love that you keep up with the details, like naming the Wyoming Game and Fish Department building in Cheyenne after Katelyn Hamm. What makes that important to you?
A. Readers have to suspend disbelief in any long-running series, so I try hard to inject so much realism and back-story into every book that the world of the novels seems authentic.
C. J. Box is the author of 27 novels, including the Joe Pickett series. He won the Edgar Alan Poe Award for Best Novel (“Blue Heaven” in 2009) as well as the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, two Barry Awards and the 2010 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Award for fiction. He was also awarded the 2016 Western Heritage Award for Literature by the National Cowboy Museum and the Spur Award from Western Writers of America for Best Contemporary Novel. The novels have been translated into 30 languages, and more than 10 million copies of his books have been sold in the U.S. and abroad.
(Courtesy Photo/C.J. Box)
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‘Long Range’
Read more about C.J. Box and order books at cjbox.net.
