"Box knows what readers expect and delivers it with a flourish..."

Michele Ross

Authors of long-running mystery series must do some tricky balancing. They can take risks, which can be invigorating -- or irritate the readers. They can keep writing the same reliable books, which can be safe -- or bore the readers. Here are three masters who have tried both ways and almost always get it right...

C.J. Box brings back Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett in Blood Trail (Putnam, 301 pp., $26.95) and in doing so, shows why he has pretty much sewn up the state as his own territory. Pickett, a devoted if often bewildered husband and father, would just like to do his job, but life, and politics, are never going to make it easy.

In fact, Pickett has been fired as game warden, but when a gutted, strung-up and flayed hunter is found in a mountain camp, the governor wants Pickett on the case. Throw in anti-hunting forces, political treachery that makes the animals look like the civilized ones, obnoxious neighbors, a growing daughter, and once again, Pickett can barely stay afloat.

But we know our Joe. Better, Box knows what readers expect and delivers it with a flourish.

Ross is a critic in Atlanta.

To reach Michele Ross:

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