Long Range is the 20th mystery novel in the Joe Pickett series by author C. J. Box.
Wyoming game manager Joe Pickett must investigate a murder plot. A crime committed from an unbelievable distance.
When Joe Pickett is asked to join an effort to rescue the victim of an incredible grizzly attack, he reluctantly leaves his area behind. Just as Joe began to suspect the attack wasn’t what it seemed, he was rushed home to his yard. Someone had targeted a prominent local judge, shooting at him from a seemingly impossible distance. When the judge isn’t hit, his wife is seriously injured, and Joe has to find answers – and the shooter.

The search for the assassin becomes personal when Joe’s best friend, Nate Romanowski. He is adjusting to the birth of his first child – a crime suspect. A race against time as Joe tries to clear Nate’s name and identify the real shooter, all while deciphering the grizzly encounter. Surrounded by both man-made and natural threats, the two men must do their best to keep their loved ones safe.

In the 20th story of the Joe Pickett saga reader’s find the scrappy Wyoming Game Warden once again in over his head and involved in matters way beyond poachers or some dude with an expired fishing license.

Local magistrate, Judge Hewitt, a cantankerous no-nonsense judge whom Joe has dealt with a number of times in the past is sitting down to dinner at his plush golf course home when a bullet comes through the window, missing him but striking his wife Sue as she’s brining in the entrée. The judge quickly assembles the town’s law enforcement including Joe and sets them to the task of finding the shooter pronto. It soon becomes evident that this is the work of a highly skilled sniper using hi-tech equipment and naturally suspicion begins to fall on Joe’s mysterious buddy, ex- Special Forces, master falconer, and all around Ninja, Nate Romanowski. Even though Nate’s gone legit the past couple of years and now has a wife and baby daughter named Kestrel (I know, too cute) his outsized reputation makes him the favorite of the new Sheriff who is more concerned with positioning himself for higher office than finding the truth. Oh, and Nate’s also being stalked by a cartel assassin seeking vengeance following the events from the previous novel, “Wolf Pack”.

Box knows how to tell a story and this book is no different; the plot moves along swiftly and the suspense builds nicely. Over the course of this series Pickett has become less inept and more competent although his penchant for getting in trouble remains intact. We learn in “Long Range” that Joe is 50 years old which is an interesting revelation. This book also has Box kill off another recurring character and retire the judge; the author got rid of three regulars in “Wolf Pack” too so he seems to be setting things up for some changes. Joe’s pickup still gets shot up though, and Nate rips at least one guy’s ear off so those elements are preserved. We also learn in “Long Range” that Joe is 50 years old which is an interesting revelation.

When author’s pin an age on their protagonist in novels that are set in real time it establishes an obvious end point where the character can no longer believably continue to be a crime buster. The late Robert B. Parker for example established P.I. Spenser as a Korean War veteran but quickly dropped that and although we know Spenser is aging (and should be in a nursing home by now) he still soldiers on today in new mysteries written by proxies. Michael Connelly is meeting this issue head on with his popular Harry Bosch character who is a Vietnam vet aging out of the LAPD and winding things down as a P.I. in a manner that feels authentic. Conversely, author Craig Johnson with his Vietnam era Sheriff Walt Longmire, who has to be 70 years old, still out doing ridiculous stuff that he could never do and carrying on an intimate relationship with his undersheriff.

• Long Range

• By: C. J. Box

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