BELOW ZERO
By C.J. Box

Publishers Weekly (starred review):

Edgar-finalist Box’s ninth novel to feature Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett begins with a bombshell: could Pickett’s foster daughter, April, who apparently died six years earlier in a horrific conflagration when overzealous FBI agents confronted a group of dissident survivalists (see 2003’s Winterkill), still be alive? Pickett’s 17-year-old daughter, Sheridan, begins receiving disturbing text messages from someone claiming to be her dead sister, and Pickett’s entire family is forced to relive the tragedy. Even worse, whoever is sending these messages is traveling crosscountry with suspected serial killers targeting people whose carbon footprint is too high. Still struggling with the guilt of not protecting April from her nightmarish fate in Winterkill, Pickett vows to save her this time, no matter the cost. Powered by provocative themes of environmental activism, this relentlessly paced powder keg of a thriller could be Box’s best to date.

Library Journal (starred review):

What would you do if a loved one began text messaging you after her death? Is someone playing a bizarre hoax on the Pickett family? Sheridan, Joe Pickett's older daughter, begins receiving text messages from someone saying she's April, the foster child killed in the Waco-style raid six years earlier (as recounted in Winterkill). "April" seems to be a hostage of a deranged ecoterrorist and his father, and they're headed straight for Wyoming. Once again, game warden Pickett plunges into the middle of a topical environmental issue, putting his and his girls' lives on the line. Wyoming's immense spaces make a fitting background for another tense thriller, with the iconic Devils Tower holding court over a frantic chase through the tangled back roads of the Black Hills. Box's series is the gold standard in the western mystery subgenre (Blood Trail), and his latest is just as addictive as the others.

Booklist:

The hardworking and best-selling Box has been on a two-book-per-year pace of late, alternating his popular Joe Pickett novels with stand-alone thrillers....Box returns with a Pickett adventure that marries the fast pace and ensemble approach of the stand-alones with the thematic concerns and reliable cast of the series. It starts when the Wyoming game warden’s teenage daughter, Sheridan, receives a text message with a staggering implication: that April, the foster daughter thought dead in Winterkill (2003), is still alive. If it really is April who’s texting, she’s in danger, and for Pickett, the only thing worse than losing her the first time would be losing her again.

Pickett must negotiate FBI politics, recruit his fugitive friend Nate Romanowski, and take a crash course in cell-phone-tracking technology to find her. The environmental theme, always part of a Pickett novel, is global warming, and while Box gets at it in a surprising way (the title doesn’t mean what you think it means)....The book is, however, a successful blend of the two things Box does best and seems likely to bring fans of the terrific stand-alone Blue Heaven (2008) to this very fine series.

The Associated Press:

Wyoming game Warden Joe Pickett isn't the most heroic crime novel hero around, but he might be the most decent. In "Below Zero," the ninth novel in the series, his best qualities are on full display: devoted family man, faithful public servant, loyal friend and lover of nature.

You'll cheer when Joe finally nabs "the mad archer," a cruel poacher who relishes inflicting pain and death on deer, eagles and even dogs. But that's just the subplot.

The real action starts when Joe's teenage daughter Sherry receives a mysterious text message. It purports to be from April, the foster daughter that the Picketts took in, and then lost, in the fiery conclusion to "Winterkill" (2003). Her body, charred beyond recognition, was buried years ago. Or was it? Could it be someone else lying in that grave?

Meanwhile, the girl who is, or isn't, April, is in trouble. She's travelling across the West with an environmental extremist who thinks that the best way to reduce a human being's carbon footprint is to kill him. So Joe's search for the mystery girl quickly turns into a murder investigation.

Those who have not read "Winterkill" will have no trouble following the story, but readers might find it more rewarding to start with the first Pickett novel and read them in order.

"Below Zero," published just weeks after Box's "Blue Heaven" won the Edgar Award for best crime novel of 2008, is primarily a crime story. But it is also an exploration of the limits of family love and the line between love of nature and environmental extremism.

As usual with Box's novels, the action scenes are interwoven with loving descriptions of his native Wyoming's farms, towns, mountains and prairies:

"Joe rolled into town at three-thirty in the morning as the fingers of morning mist began their probing ghost-creep from the river into Saddlestring and the single traffic light at the First and Main blinked amber in all directions. There were no lights on yet downtown, and the traffic consisted of a single town cop spotlighting a raccoon in an alley."

The book is tightly written, with well-drawn characters and sharp dialogue. Box keeps the reader of balance with a series of plot twists as startling as anything on TV's "24." You never see them coming, yet they never feel contrived.

The Denver Post:

If someone says "below zero and C.J. Box" in the same breath, a vision of frigid Wyoming weather would immediately pop into mind. But that would be wrong. "Below Zero," the ninth book in the Joe Pickett series, involves the lowering of carbon footprints. Add a Chicago gangster, his rabid environmentalist son and a long-dead daughter to the mix and the action takes off.

In "Winterkill," the third Pickett novel, Box introduced April Keeley, a girl who Joe and wife, Marybeth, took into their home and family. During the fiery climax, April was killed with her biological mother in the camp of a survivalist group known as the Sovereign Citizens. Six years later, the Pickett family — including daughters Sheridan and Lucy — is still dealing with the trauma of that night.

Now it seems that someone is playing a horrible hoax on the family when Sheridan gets a message from a friend that says, "Tell Sherry April called." Then Sheridan starts getting text messages from "April." Joe is convinced that there is no way April survived, but soon details that only April could know make Joe consider the possibility that it really is April. Being the kind of man he is, Joe takes time off work and begins a quest to save the daughter he failed to protect before.

After the events in "Blood Trail," the previous book, Joe has been banished to the remote town of Baggs, Wyo., as a substitute game warden. The governor wants Joe safely out of the public eye before he uses his unique investigative abilities again. The major downside of this posting is that Joe is living far from home.

One of this series' strong points is that Box involves the whole family, his Joe is no lonely hero. Another signature theme of the Pickett series is Box's use of environmental issues that affect the "New" West.

In "Below Zero," Box uses the concept of carbon footprints, how much energy is used by individuals without regard for the environment or the future. To illustrate the concept, Box introduces David "Stenko" and his son, Robert, who is obsessed with getting his father's lifetime energy use offset so that it is not only neutral but below zero.

Robert, unfortunately, twists this beneficial concept by eliminating those who flaunt their energy use. This duo is on a collision course with Joe as they head west on their mission.

Meanwhile, Joe has enlisted both the FBI and his old friend Nate Romanowski in his search for April. Nate is a fugitive from the FBI and is taking a risk by coming out of hiding to help. When Joe discovers that the locations of April's texts coordinate with the places where unusual murders have taken place, he is afraid that the young girl is somehow involved. That would be the cruelest of events, to have April back but then lose her to the law.

Box has crafted a story that is as current as environmental terrorism and as old as a father's love for his child. He then sets the story in his beloved, well-described Wyoming and even takes Joe to the big city of Chicago by way of Devil's Tower. The action is brutal and unforgiving as the two pairs of father and child struggle toward their goals.

"Below Zero" is more of a thriller than a mystery, and the pace is relentless. The characters are fascinating, and their actions range from the heroic to despicable.

Box really knows how to create a complex situation, add suspense and then twist the tale with surprises that make for an intense and satisfying read. Box has become one of the West's most anticipated storytellers.

Barnesandnoble.com (review spotlight for June 22, 2009):

Blue Heaven, Box's last book, was a terrific stand-alone thriller about rogue L.A. cops retired to Idaho. Below Zero is a return to the Joe Pickett series, Box's ongoing dissection of crime in Wyoming as seen through the eyes of a game warden whose favorite big game is human villains. Below Zero is the ninth Pickett book, and it could be the best one yet. Beautifully written and constructed, with an art that underplays its excitement and emotional strength, it quickly becomes personal with a phone message: "Tell Sherry April called." But April, the Picketts' foster daughter, was killed in a bloody massacre, described in Winterkill, which Joe witnessed. In subsequent calls, the girl calling herself April gives so many details of their life together that Sherry begins to believe she really is alive. Joe is still skeptical. Meanwhile, Box's amazing ability to create villains both frightening and believable kicks into high gear. An older man, Stenko, his son Robert, and a young girl (the one leaving messages and texting Sherry) are traveling across the country. Stenko's purpose is to undo the damage he's done to the environment by erasing his "carbon footprint" first to zero and then to below zero. Unfortunately, he is lowering his footprint with a series of mostly violent crimes. Stenko's first target is in a trailer park: a giant mobile home, called The Unit by a retired farm couple, that gets about seven miles per gallon. Stenko shoots the couple, then burns The Unit. "Here's the deal," Stenko says to his next targets. "I was a hard-charger. Ambitious, ruthless, I guess.... But then I got the word from my docs.... I thought, What a selfish bastard I am. Like you two, I took and took and I never gave anything back.... Now I've got this deficit I'm trying to pay down."

Billings Gazette:

Wyoming author C.J. Box had me hooked with the opening lines of "Open Season," the first of his mysteries featuring game warden Joe Pickett.

The author's skill at plotting, suspense and character were evident quickly in that first novel and have been honed over the years, with more Pickett books and the standalone novels "Three Weeks To Say Goodbye" and "Blue Heaven."

And Box's writing is razor-sharp in his ninth Pickett mystery, "Below Zero."

Box sets a tranquil stage for an elderly couple ready to dine at a South Dakota camp site. But the "gawkers" who stop to see the couple's huge RV are bent on environmental "good" at the cost of human life.

And the tranquility is quickly shattered.

Meanwhile, in Wyoming, Pickett's satisfaction at finally snaring a poacher called the Mad Archer vanishes with a simple phone message to his teenaged daughter: "Tell Sherry April called."

But April, his foster daughter, has been dead for six years. Pickett witnessed the fiery death himself in the earlier novel, "Winterkill."

Is someone cruelly impersonating the girl whom his family still mourns or could she have survived the massacre at the compound of the survivalist Sovereigns?

The possibility revives Pickett's deep guilt at not having been able to save her.

Box adeptly weaves the three plot lines together in a fast-paced hunt across northeastern Wyoming that those familiar with the area will especially enjoy.

The Chicago mob, a dying man's quest to erase his carbon footprint, a fugitive falconer and Pickett's gold-digger mother-in-law seem an odd mix. But Box writes with the tightness and descriptive abilities of a former journalist.

As in his other novels, he blends hot topics, humor and explosive mystery.

His skill at creating characters shines in Stenko, whose care for a runaway teen reveals a sliver of humanity behind the cold-blooded killer.

Stenko's four-word greeting lets readers almost hear his disgust for the thieving Leo: "Let's go inside, Hoss."

Pickett's love for his family, compassion for animals, respect for the environment and willingness to use his own methods to protect them have been hallmarks of the character from the start. And he continues his earnest, sometimes-bumbling, not-by-the-book battle in "Below Zero."

Unpredictable and thought-provoking, this is the best Pickett novel yet and displays the rich fusion of message and entertaining mystery found in "Free Fire," which was set in Yellowstone National Park.

"Below Zero" rivals "Blue Heaven," which just won the coveted Edgar Allen Poe Award for best novel from the Mystery Writers of America.

Readers new to the Pickett series will best appreciate "Below Zero" if they first read "Winterkill" or, better yet, read the entire series in order. The characters grow throughout the series, and some of the humor and irony tie to earlier works.

But, just on its own, "Below Zero" is a standout mystery showing why Box has built a national and international fan base.