Wyoming’s Mystery Man: C.J. Box on Top

By Susan Gray Gose

Riverside– C.J. Box walks into the Beartrap Café wearing a baseball cap, Carhartt jacket, jeans, and low-riding hiking shoes. He greets Margaret, the owner, and nods to her two dogs as they wander in. He orders a cheese-steak and iced tea. And he points to a spot at the bar where he likes to catch Nuggets games.

But this is also a place where the best-selling author dreams up the latest adventures for Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett. Box cranks out 1,000 words a day—whether here at the Bearside, in his stream-side cabin, or at home in Cheyenne.

C.J. Box is possibly this state’s most successful homegrown author, and is certainly its more prolific. The Kelly Walsh High grad who couldn’t find a journalism job after college and was snubbed by his first agent, now publishes two books a year. The first Pickett book appeared in 2001. In less than a decade, Box has scaled the heights of the publishing world; millions of copies in the Pickett series have been sold worldwide.
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