What drives a man who seems to have it all to take his own life? That's what Joe Pickett must discover in "Out of Range," C.J. Box's fifth mystery featuring the Wyoming game warden, as he is temporarily transferred to the Jackson Hole District to replace Will Jensen, a warden who committed suicide. Jensen's suicide disturbs Joe, because Jensen is the man all the other game wardens look up to.

Before arriving in Jackson, Joe is told that in the months leading up to Jensen's death, his life had gone on a downward spiral. His family had left him, he'd been arrested for drunk driving and he'd gotten into fights.

Upon arriving in Jackson, Joe discovers for himself what Jensen had been dealing with. He finds himself in the middle of a number of disputes — hunters versus animal-rights protectors, developers squaring off against environmentalists, locals versus out-of-state (and often celebrity) landowners, each of whom has a different view of what the "Wyoming experience" should be. Joe quickly understands why Jensen, shortly before his death, told someone that he felt like everyone was "coming at him from all sides." And when Joe begins to feel peculiar, he starts to understand how evil and sinister the forces behind Jensen's death really are.

Like its four predecessors, "Out of Range" uses current Western issues as background for the mystery. But "Out of Range" is Box's most ambitious novel to date, a multi-layered and complex book whose main plot and numerous subplots weave together effectively. Besides the political issues that make up the primary plot, Joe and Marybeth's marriage is experiencing problems "from all sides" as well — the guilt each of them is feeling as they deal with an attraction to another person (perhaps brought on by their forced separation because of Joe's assignment in Jackson), the stress of a teenager's attitudes, someone taking advantage of Joe's absence to stalk Marybeth and their daughters. And the evaluation each is making of where their lives are versus where they'd like them to be. In "Out of Range," Joe's domestic problems are as important, and as interesting, as his investigation into Will Jensen's death.

The book highlights what a political pressure cooker Jackson is for Wyoming's game wardens. Exacerbating the many political issues is Jackson's prevalence over the rest of Wyoming. As Joe's supervisor tells him, "And it's not just local, either. It's national and international. ... Jackson is Wyoming's very own California, for better or worse. Things that happen there will eventually influence the rest of the state and beyond. Everybody knows that. It's why the big wars start there. Whoever wins those wars knows that no one else will fight as hard anywhere else. It's the front line."

The plot also highlights a common problem among game wardens. They must be fairly autonomous due to the sheer size of their districts, and the paucity of game wardens can bring "a secret lonely hell to some men" and ravage them. Box forces us to consider how difficult a game warden's life is — how much stress they experience, and the difficult living and working conditions they and their families must accept.

As usual, Box's descriptions of his settings hit their mark, with the realistic assuredness of one who has seen what he's describing. So when he talks about "the glittering silver-white Tetons, ... thrust[ing] upward like razor-edged sabers trying to slice open the sky," the reader understands that Box is writing about a place he knows well and loves.

In a good series that has gotten better with each book, "Out of Range" represents a quantum-leap improvement over the previous books. It's clearly Box's best ... so far.

Chuck Brownman is a corporate and energy attorney, and a mystery writer, who lives in Boulder.

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