As a piece of fiction, you have to suspend reality a bit when reading these books, but Below Zero really takes it too far.

I have enjoyed this series so far but this book kind of went off the rails. Review #4 Below Zero audio narrated by David Chandler I’ve already put the next in the series on my Kindle.

Wyoming is also a main character in this series, this time with the iconic Devil’s Tower ever present during a tense chase through the puzzle of roads in the Black Hills. I enjoy this series, and Joe, a game warden, is a great hero – humble, honest to a fault, tough and persistent. He’s a murderer, and Joe becomes involved (of course). The other plot here concerns a man crossing the country on a mission to become (and to force others to become) “carbon neutral,” to offset perceived crimes against the earth and environment. April was a child they took in and were planning to adopt when her bio mother returned and then both were killed in a horrific arson and murder six years prior – or were they? That book, Winterkill, earlier in the series, was also excellent. The story begins with a telephone message: “Tell Sherry that April called.” But Joe, his oldest daughter “Sherry” (actually Sheridan), and the family are shaken to their cores. As in many of the Pickett novels, there are two co-existing plots and both are riveting. If you read this book without having read those that went before it, you will be informed of the background enough to understand it but you won’t enjoy it nearly so much. The role of Sheridan (and Lucy) along with super-Mom Marybeth made this a slighly grown-up version of Nancy Drew.īy the end of the book I couldn’t care less of what happened to any of them. ) And am I the only reader who assumed that Nate was taking his liberties with Marybeth but Joe just couldn’t accept this (or needed Nate’s super-hero’s abilities to the degree that he decided to play along).Īnyway, it was a good ride, until Below Zero. (Hey, where does Nate target practice? It takes a lot a range time to be that good with that revolver. Perhaps I’ve had too much of this Marvel-comic -like character. Joe lost his common sense and sense of who he is in the law enforcement community.Īnd Nate just got bothersome. His so-called reasons for needing to get to April before law enforcement didn’t wash. Rather, it showed him as a guy who needs help-and probably should take a leave of absence from being a game warden.) Less charitably, I was hoping Joe got busted for obstructing justice. (The whole idea of unearthing April seemed like an excuse to show the sensitive side of Joe. Perhaps I’ve had too much of Joe, Nate, and his family, which became progressively irritating in the book. (The Highway Quartet was fantastic.) But Below Zero is uncharacteristically cartoonish, political beyond necessity given the plot, and frankly, irritating. I am a big CJ Box fan and have read all of the Joe P books, save one.

Below zero by cj box