Where the West gets wild

by: JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
6/1/2008 12:00 AM

C.J. Box's latest Joe Pickett adventure takes on issues about hunting

Mystery was the last thing on C.J. Box's mind when he began working on his first novel.

"I thought 'mystery' meant Agatha Christie and amateur detectives finding out whodunit in English villages," Box said, laughing. "I really had no idea how broad the genre had become.

"I thought I was writing a contemporary Western that dealt with environmental issues," he said of that first novel, "Open Season." "Then I thought that having a mystery to solve would be an interesting way to pull the readers through the issue I wanted to explore."

That issue was the Endangered Species Law, and Box wanted to show how the law, "no matter how well-meaning, tended to get screwed up once it was on the ground, out there in the field."

Box thought of having his main character be a sheriff, then a reporter — the latter one of the several jobs Box had held in his career.

But it was while doing a ride-along for a story with a game warden that Box came up with the perfect job for his protagonist.

"Game wardens tend to operate their own areas or districts, usually work alone, and have these unique wide-ranging responsibilities," he said.

"Open Season," which featured Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett, was an instant phenomenon when it was published in 2001, earning nominations for just about every major mystery award, and winning most of them.

And Box's own ideas about the sort of books he was writing began to change.

"Richard Price (author of 'Clockers' and 'Freedomland') said it best, when he said, the more you circle around a homicide, the better you understand a city," Box said. "And I realized that there is not a better way of exposing issues and looking at culture than the crime novel."

Box's latest novel — his eighth about Joe Pickett — is the recently published "Blood Trail," which uses the conflict between pro-hunting and anti-hunting factions as the background for a story about hunters suddenly finding themselves on the wrong side of someone's high-powered rifle.

When the body of a hunter is discovered field-dressed — gutted, skinned and decapitated, the way a deer might be — Pickett is brought in to investigate. It's an assignment that brings Pickett, who is now working at the beck and call of the state's governor, in close contact with a number of people from his past for whom he feels little love and even less trust.

The idea for this novel had its roots in Box's very first book about Joe Pickett.

"I guess there were a lot of subliminal things going on when I was writing that first book," Box said, laughing. "I didn't think I was starting a series when I wrote that first book, but I put in all this stuff that I've gone back to over the years."

For example, Box's previous novel, "Free Fire," in part was an elaboration on a brief paragraph about Joe Pickett's brother committing suicide in Yellowstone Park.

"With the new book, I remembered some references about something that happened on an Indian reservation that I had never fleshed out," he said. "That was the real impetus for this book — and the hunting stuff just came in naturally."

In fact, Box said, he had deliberately avoided writing about hunting issues in his earlier books, because he did not want them to be thought of as "hunting and fishing mysteries."

"Of course, there's a lot of hunting and fishing that goes on in my stories," he said. "I just didn't want it to become a gimmick."

"Blood Trail" is the second Box novel to be published this year. In January, he came out with his first book not to feature Joe Pickett — a stand-alone thriller called "Blue Heaven."

This book takes its name from an area in Northern Idaho where literally hundreds of former Los Angeles police officers now live.

In Box's novel, two children witness four ex-policeman commit a murder, but manage to run away before they can be caught. The four killers then volunteer to lead the search party created to find the now-missing children.

"It's told in real time, over about 60 hours, from six different points of view," Box said. "It turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be, but I was really able to stretch with this book. I think I've become a better writer by stepping out of the series, and I plan to alternate stand-alone novels with Joe Pickett books. I don't want things to get stale."

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Meet the Author

C.J. Box will sign copies of his novels beginning at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Barnes & Noble, 5341 E. 41st St.

James D. Watts Jr. 581-8478
james.watts@tulsaworld.com