April 2018 Book, Open Season
Young Joe Piclett is struggling to fill the shoes of his mentor, legendary Vern Dunnegan, as game warden of Twelve Sleep County, Wyoming and trying to support his wife and growing family on the meager salary he makes. The hours are long, the work hard but satisfying. Joe's honesty and integrity would pay off if he could avoid "bonehead moves" like ticketing the governor of the state for fishing without a license, for instance, or allowing a poacher to grab Joe's firearm from him. When that very same poacher turns up dead and bloodied in Joe's woodpile with only a cooler containing unidentified animal scat, his life, livelihood and family will never be the same. Upping the excitement are a couple of murders, local political and bureaucratic intrigue, a high-stakes pipeline scheme and an endangered species that Joe's eldest daughter discovers. Without resorting to simplistic views, Box fuses ecological themes, vibrant descriptions of Wyoming&