Starred review from February 15, 2010
Inspired by a real-life Wyoming game warden's encounter with sinister mountain-man twin brothers, Edgar-winner Box's outstanding 10th Joe Pickett novel (after Below Zero
) takes Pickett into darker territory than ever before. Pickett's eerie last patrol as a temporary game warden in a remote mountainous area turns into a savage brush with death, followed by a crisis of conscience that drives the decent Pickett back into the same mountains to rescue Diane Shober, an Olympic runner who vanished there—and to bring Caleb and Camish Grim, twin brothers suspected of poaching (and maybe worse) to justice. Box inexorably builds Joe's harrowing personal quest into a complex meditation on human greed and government corruption. A lone black wolf, possibly Box's symbol for the wilderness within and without the human soul, tracks Joe throughout this terrible, beautiful tale of courage and compassion and culpability. Author tour.
