Free Fire

In this book, Joe Pickett is assigned by Wyoming’s Governor to research why a group of environmentalists were killed in Yellowstone’s “Zone of Death”. I was not aware of this until reading this book but there is a small section of Yellowstone Park that is part of Idaho, where theoretically an individual could get away with murder. Since it is on US Government land and no one lives there, you can’t convene a jury to try someone for a crime – and a person can not be found guilty without a jury trial. Bizarre! Thankfully, this has never happened except in this CJ Box book, so we don’t know how things would proceed. Maybe the criminal would be taken to Cheyenne for trial, but then the criminal may get a good lawyer, like the murderer in this book, who is a lawyer, and push that his constitutional rights have been violated. Anyway, Joe Pickett is sent to this mess to figure out what happened and uncovers the web of criminals behind these mysterious murders which makes for an interesting story.

I am a recent fan of C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett series. I read Book #21 first (outstanding!) and decided to start from the beginning. I’m on his eighth book now and just had to stop to write this review. This series has everything I love–crime/police procedural (OK, game warden procedural), modern Western themes, topical subjects, and people in trouble in the Great Outdoors. I would enjoy the series a lot more if people in the book would just stop rolling their eyes. Honestly, I think the author could do with more serious editing,. In the book I just finished reading, “Free Fire”–characters in the book “rolled their eyes” 45 times. Is that really necessary to move the story along? Please, C.J., spare us these inane and tacky references that don’t contribute anything to the story!! Otherwise, I would give the whole series 5++ stars!

Joe Pickett is a Wyoming game warden. I have read a few of author C.J. Box’s books and have learned that Pickett is often involved in far more highly dramatic, complex, life-threatening law enforcement adventures than is, I feel certain, the typical game warden.

In this novel Pickett is on a special assignment for the governor of Wyoming. He is investigating the murder of four people in Yellowstone National Park. Turns out that due to the unusual location of the murders and a loophole made possible by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, no one can be tried for these murders, even though a particularly contemptible person admits guilt. Pickett’s job is to find out if there is any way to nail the guilty person.

The book includes excellent descriptions of some of Yellowstone’s features. A big part of the plot involves microbes found in the park’s water. It may be possible to use these microbes to process coal very efficiently with billions of profits at stake. Enter the picture greedy, ruthless people.

There is outstanding character development. I just could not put the book down, and I did not use crazy glue.

The quote in the title comes from a Fed near the end of this novel. It is indicative of C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett series for it is not just the Feds Pickett cannot trust. Throughout the series, Pickett has to fight the bureaucracies of local, state and federal agencies in order to get the bad guy. He also gets caught between tree huggers vs greedy developers, animal rights activists vs poachers and law vs justice.

In the Joe Pickett books, there are no good guys other than Pickett, his family and friend Nate. Oh, there is the occasional breakthrough like the female park ranger character in “Free Fire” but, on the whole, most every other character in the series is ruthless, ambitious, violent or incompetent. Everyone seems to have an agenda from the unrealistic and dogmatic environmentalist to the unethical and money-grubbing businessman. Nobody escapes C.J. Box’s skewering in these books.

“Free Fire” is a fine example of how frustrating life is for Joe Pickett and how he has to deal with the corruption all around him in his pursuit of justice. In “Free Fire”, Pickett is engaged by the new governor to investigate a murder in Yellowstone National Park. Pickett gets his old job back as Wyoming game warden but he is conducting his investigation on the sly–the governor has plausible deniability and offers little in the way of support for the assignment he has given Pickett. The fly in the ointment of the murder itself is that there is no legal way to try the murderer because it took place in the “Zone of Death” within Yellowstone–an area of the country where no one resides to act as peers for a jury in a criminal trial. To further complicate matters, the park officials would just as soon forget the whole incident to avoid further bad publicity that might blemish their careers.

Pickett’s insecurity and self doubt gets on your nerves after a while. You just want to slap him and tell him to stop beating himself up over every incident in his life and get on with it. But we all have self doubt at times and can identify with Pickett’s dilemmas and stress. You also get frustrated when Pickett runs into the power structures that offer no support. In the end, the story does reach resolution but only to the extent that the bad guys face some forms of justice. In the end, Pickett still has to deal with the corruption and deceit of government officials. Makes for a good series of books.

I’ve been reading the whole Joe Pickett series in order and it keeps getting better. The books aren’t always perfect (I’ve found a few editing mistakes and errors of fact along the way) but they are enjoyable. And frustrating.

C.J. Box’s game-warden hero, Joe Pickett, is an ethical, honest man who loves his wife, his daughters and his job. Each book in this superior series puts Joe into a position where his basic goodness is tested by poachers, government officials, murderers, serial killers and, sometimes, just plain stupid people who try his patience. The core of most of the books is Joe’s relationship with his best friend, Nate Romanowski, Joe’s ‘darker half’. A loner, master falconer and federal fugitive. Their friendship and loyalty to each other adds depth to each of the well-plotted stories. This is not the best book in the series but I can certainly recommend it along with all the others. Each book stands alone but the cumulative effect of reading them in order is the better way to go. C.J. Box has also written a few unrelated novels so look for those that state ‘A Joe Pickett Novel’.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member