Book Review: “Stone Cold” by C. J. Box

Genre: Thriller

Joe Pickett is sent by Gov. Rulon to investigate a murder-for-hire operation in rural Wyoming. What he finds is terrifying…..

 Buy It!

Nate Romanowski is stalking the man he was hired to kill. He completes that task with typical cold-blooded efficiency.

A month later, Joe Pickett is working to extricate his long abandoned Wyoming Game and Fish department pickup truck from a remote mountain top. By recovering this vehicle,
he hopes to get at least some brownie points from his new boss, Director Lisa Green-Dempsey (LGD). He finally succeeds, and as he and the tow truck driver descend the mountain cell phone service activates and Joe sees that he has voice mail messages.

One is from the Governor of Wyoming.

Knowing the day will come when Gov. Rulon will call needing the services of his “special liaison to the executive branch” Joe is not surprised that that call has finally come. The next day he boards a plane, Rulon One, for a meeting with the Governor in Cheyenne.

In the meeting, Joe learns that the FBI suspects (but there is no hard evidence) that a murder-for-hire ring, headed by Wolfgang Templeton, is operating in the Black Hills area of Medicine Wheel County. Gov. Rulon previously sent an operative there, but he died in a fire in a motel cabin.

Very suspicious.

Joe Pickett, Game Warden, and his young yellow lab, Daisy, drive to Medicine Wheel County to help the local Game Warden, Jim Latta, place some pheasant in the area and to help Jim develop public hunting access to private lands. And, in his undercover role as special liaison, to surreptitiously find out what the hell is going on with Templeton.

What Joe finds is shocking and dangerous.

In secondary plots, Joe and MaryBeth’s daughter, Sheridan is now a junior at the University of Wyoming and is suspicious of a quiet, somewhat strange, student, and, adopted daughter, April, is dating a rodeo cowboy that Joe despises.

“Stone Cold” is riveting, action filled,and……..deadly.

C.J. Box does not disappoint.

Does Joe survive? Is Nate sent to kill him? What happens to Sheridan and April?  And……you will not believe who shows up in Templeton’s home……OMG.

To find out what happens, you will have to read the book.  🙂