"Recommended, especially for fans of Nevada Barr and Tony Hillerman."

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett is back for his third Western adventure (after Savage Run), again confronted with murder and mystery while doing his job during a rugged mountain winter. He first finds Lamar Gardiner, a federal bureaucrat, impaled on two arrows and stuck to a tree with his throat cut. Then Birch Wardell, a Bureau of Land Management worker, is nearly killed in a truck accident. Is it a coincidence that government employees are suddenly being attacked at the same time that a ragtag group of survivors from Ruby Ridge and Waco, calling themselves the Nation of Sovereign Citizens, has moved into the national forest campground? The Forest Service doesn't think so, starting down a road that leads to a deadly confrontation. Box's latest novel once again centers around the environment and land management, adding a dose of realism to the rough-and-tumble action, which works well with the realistic characters and Western setting. Recommended, especially for fans of Nevada Barr and Tony Hillerman.

-Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ., Calumet Lib., Hammond, IN Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.