Everyone is used to getting unsolicited (and, usually, unwelcome) telephone calls. Few, however, have ever been electronically accosted by a voice from the grave. But that's what has happened to the Pickett family.

Joe Pickett is a Wyoming game warden with an affinity for nature and a talent for solving man-made problems – enough so that the governor has made him his unofficial trouble-shooter. Joe is not without troubles of his own, among them guilt over the murder of his beloved foster daughter, April, six years ago, for which he feels responsible. So he is dumbfounded by the girl on the phone who claims to be April.

The rest of the Pickett clan – his wife and two daughters – are thrilled, but Joe has doubts about this return from the dead. As the calls continue, his skepticism is reinforced by the discovery that they were placed from different locations, each the scene of a recent violent crime and possibly the work of a serial killer.

Joe forms an uneasy alliance with the local FBI, as together they search for the killer, a retired Chicago underworld character named Stenko who has been seen traveling in the company of a much younger woman. Is she his captive or his confederate? – and, in either case, what is her connection to the long missing April? Seeking the answers to those questions pits Joe against foes on either side of the law, including his abrasive mother-in-law, and puts the lives of his family in jeopardy.

C.J. Box has created a large and loyal fan base with his Joe Pickett series, thrillers set mainly in our western wilderness and made more distinctive by their vigorous championing of environmental causes. He is up to his old – but enjoyable – tricks here.

Reviewed by Robert Wade