This time, I wanted to write a mystery. Of course, the previous Joe Pickett novels are considered mysteries, or thrillers set in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. With Trophy Hunt, I set out to construct a full-fledged mystery filled with death and deception that will keep the reader in suspense until the last pages – and, I hope, thinking about it long afterward. My intention is to challenge the reader to note important clues (they’re there) in a hard-charging story involving murders and mutilations, a rogue grizzly bear, self-proclaimed experts in the paranormal, twists and double-twists, and an investigation that leads toward an unexpected, and (for Joe) deeply unsettling conclusion.

My novels include environmental issues that are integral
to the modern West. Trophy Hunt is no different. The boom
in coal bed methane development in the Rocky Mountains has
literally transformed the terrain – and the economy
– in ways both good and bad. I was researching the
issue for background when something entirely unrelated happened:
the discovery of dozens of mutilated cattle in Montana.
Remembering the stories of cattle mutilations from my youth,
I contacted the lead reporter covering the story and she
supplied me with clippings, reports, and extremely disturbing
photos. The details of the deaths were eerily similar: no
obvious cause of death; faces and genitals surgically removed;
no tire tracks, footprints, or evidence near the bodies;
and, strangest of all, the bodies were untouched by natural
predators. I knew as I leafed through the documents that
Joe Pickett would have a new case - one that would test
his sense of reality.

Joe Pickett has been compared to Gary Cooper by both reviewers
and the actor’s only daughter for his quiet, but determined,
approach. Imagine Joe’s frustration and self-doubt
when the evidence points to something he simply will not
let himself believe in?

As the pressure mounts and the rural citizens of the area
look ominously at the big sky and form their own conclusions,
Joe strikes off on his own, and is plunged into a world
filled with twisted motives, hidden agendas, long-held secrets,
and the gnarled black heart of an age-old mystery.

It's an idyllic late summer day in Saddlestring, Wyoming, and game warden Joe Pickett is fly-fishing with his two daughters when he stumbles upon the mutilated body of a moose. Whatever-or whoever-attacked the animal was ruthless: Half the animal's face has been sliced away, the skin peeled back from the flesh. Shaken by the assault, Pickett begins to investigate what he hopes is an isolated incident.

Days later, after the discovery of a small herd of mutilated cattle, Pickett realizes this is something much bigger. Local authorities are quick to label the attacks the work of a grizzly bear, but Joe knows otherwise. The cuts on the moose and the cattle were too clean, too precise to have been made by jagged teeth. Are the animals only practice for a killer about to move on to a different, more challenging prey?

Joe's worst fears are realized when the bodies of two men are discovered within days of each other, their wounds eerily similar to those found on the moose and cattle. There's a vicious killer, a modern-day Jack the Ripper, on the loose in The Bighorn Mountains - and it appears his rampage is just beginning.