Dark Sky (A Joe Pickett Novel Book 21)

I don’t review many books because others can do a better job than I. I read a lot of books, over 200 a year an it is rare that a story pulls me in to the point that I can’t put it down. I finished this one at 4 am.After reading it I was sure that there would be a review by someone saying that they wouldn’t read it because the the Republican Governor was portrayed as a schemer and not so nice guy. And yes there was already one such review. The reviewer has missed a really good book by being offended by the description of one character.There are many issues that are relevant in our society that are woven deftly in to this story. The good and bad of social media, hunting, gun rights, bullying, suicide, revenge, and people who commit evil acts as well as those who do the right thing regardless. It actually made me think about the amount of time I spend on social media. It is far too easy for people to bully and harass others safely behind a computer screen. And social media has contributed to the polarization of our society in many ways.Don’t let a few pages stop you from reading a really good book. To me, a really good book not only entertains it makes one think. This book does that from all “sides.”

C.J. Box, I firmly believe, is not capable of writing a bad novel. But in the last few years I've begun to suspect that he's all too capable of writing an uninspired above-average novel, and DARK SKY, while above average in almost all respects compared to other entires in the Joe Pickett series and to other authors in his genre treading similar trails, does nothing to dispel this slowly dawning suspicion.DARK SKY is a novel that feels ... tired. And not just because Box seems to have gone once too often one of his favorite plot tropes: pairing Joe Pickett with a doofus or a dilettante in the Wyoming mountain wilderness, isolated, under-equipped and on the run from killers. This time, Joe is the unwitting, unwilling companion of Steve "Steve-2" Price, a Silicon Valley social-media mogul who comes across as something of a cross between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Joe is assigned to be Price's wilderness guide when hunting and cutting his own meat because Steve-2's latest obsession with authenticity. Little do they know that Price is being targeted by a trio of men bent on revenge because a family member of theirs was shamed into suicide by Price's Facebook-like social-media app, ConFab.Price isn't uninteresting, and neither are the killers, or some other characters who turn out to hidden agendas where Steve-2 is concerned. But if you've read all the Pickett books — this is his twenty-first outing — you've read this story a few times before. And beyond that, Joe doesn't really have any interesting thoughts or observations about the world Steve-2 represents, and because Steve-2 is quite a loquacious fellow, Joe all but disappears under the weight of his guest star. There's some hammy sermonizing, pro and con, about the goods and the evils of social media, but nothing that passes for piercing insight beyond the drunk-at-the-end-of-the-bar level. Even Joe's signature line — "Things are about to get real Western here"— feels like it's being delivered as an obligation, like a band that has to play its biggest hit before its fans will allow it to leave the stage.It makes me wonder if Joe is all done growing as a character, because he doesn't grow an inch in DARK SKY.Really, none of Box's stock company registers to much effect here. Nate Romanowski does his Nate thing, tearing off ears and being tortured by his dark past, yadda yadda. Marybeth Pickett provides alarm and assistance in equal measure. We briefly meet Twelve Sleep County's new prosecuting attorney and sheriff. Daughters Lucy and April are AWOL. Same with Joe's evil mother-in-law, usually the most interesting character in a Pickett novel.Far from AWOL is Sheridan Pickett. Joe's eldest daughter seems to be a full-fledged adult here, living on her own, finding her own code, happily apprenticed to Nate as a falconer in training. In fact, she's grown so much that she seems to be straining at the boundaries Box has put on her, still treated to some degree like the little girl who still needs protecting by men from men, and one gets the feeling that she's outgrown that role and then some. Her father seems to be grappling with that a bit himself during a moment of mortal, climactic danger: "The rider was Sheridan, her hat flying off her head and her hair streaming behind her as she rode. To Joe, she looked like a younger, faster, female version of John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn in TRUE GRIT."The ending of DARK SKY has me wondering if maybe, just maybe, Joe Pickett's ready to hang up his game warden's badge. And if Box is ready to hang up Joe Pickett as a lead character, and maybe, just maybe, hand over the reins to Sheridan Pickett. If so, I hope so. Her voice, her youth, her gender — in manly-man, Republican country, no less — feels ready to step in and take over, and for many reasons, the time feels right. If nothing else, Joe Pickett has earned his emeritus-hero status.

I’ve read all the Joe Pickett novels and enjoyed them. I’d looked forward to the release of Dark Sky for months during the pandemic, but was disappointed in this installment of the Joe Pickett stories. The author reveal his political leanings, which I’d suspected before, but now there’s no doubt. The sad thing is it wasn’t germane to the storyline and totally unnecessary. I seldom write reviews, preferring to show my appreciation by purchasing an author’s next book. I may think twice about the next book, which I’m sure will pick up where this one left off. This wasn’t Mr. Box’s finest.

What a page turner but its what I always expect from Mr. Box. I was born and raised in Wyoming and it never ceases to amaze me how spot on the details are making it obvious that only a Wyoming native could portray those details so well.

Game warden Joe Pickett has only recently gotten a cell phone and learned to text. At fifty-one, he’s never been on social media. And now the governor wants him to take a billionaire social media tycoon on an elk hunt. The hidden agenda is to give Steven Price such a thrilling experience that he’ll put his huge new server project in Wyoming. If Joe fails to deliver the great adventure, Joe will be fired — and his department will be defunded.Adventure is forthcoming — but not the right kind. The weather is bitter cold. And while Price hunts elk, a family of murderous locals hunts him. As Joe attempts to get himself and Price off the mountain without food or weapons — betrayals abound, bullets fly, knives flash, and bodies pile up. I was riveted. I devoured Dark Sky in one day and night.Joe’s falconer friend, Nate Romanowski, also plays a role in the plot, so the reader can expect some satisfying violence on the side of good. (Can I say that?) Anyway, Joe Pickett’s latest impossible mission is a thrilling tale of wilderness survival. Conversations between Joe and his arrogant and rather naive charge are always interesting and often amusing.C. J. Box has delivered another superlative Joe Pickett novel. The laconic, trouble-prone, oddly resourceful game warden is aging — but never grows old.

This starts out a bit too MAGA for my taste, all the stuff about the bad falconer attending antifa rallies and quite a lot more preachy than usual about how guns are good. I can usually tolerate the guns are good stuff but in conjunction with the references to Antifa it’s a bit too political. C’mon, CJ, you never had politics threaded in with Joe and Nate so much before. And, there is a lot of background narration at the start, the synopsis of Nate’s story, very clunky. Lockdown must have got to you, even in Wyoming. I eagerly awaited this one, coming to it after a long stint of William Kent Krueger, and so I now have a more direct point of comparison. This book did improve, especially on the Joe Pickett front, though I think Nate might have reached the end of the developmental road. Joe is still good value for money but maybe he needs to spend some time on the shooting range with a Casul whatever it is so he doesn’t need Nate to come to his rescue!

CJ Box writes a good book. He always did. However I was not impressed with his political beliefs intruding into the story. This was always tightly controlled up to now with just general distrust of Federal agencies (other than Joe's by and large) being part of the background. In this book there is much more explicit mention of Trump Republican views and Antifa. It would have been better to skirt around this. After all, it potentially alienates roughly half of the US readership. Other than that the book is beautifully descriptive of Wyoming, of wildlife, and of the rural way of life. His plot is pretty good for number 21 in the series.

C J Box just seems to get better with every book. I've read all his work and Joe Picket and his family are my favourite. I imagine that not too many people will be starting the series with this book. After all there are over 20 that come before it. But this is really good and, to my mind, the best of the lot so far. I had a job to stop reading it once I'd started. There is going to be another because the ending is left on something of a cliff edge. I can't wait. Highly recommended to all C J Box fans.

This latest Joe Pickett is a step down. Not a dud by any stretch, but in a series that took flight like one of Nate Romanowski’s falcons, it’s a slight fall to earth. A little ‘by numbers’ maybe? CJ Box can do better. Hope he does next time out.

Great to read the latest Joe Pickett. Still going at a good pace although less involved than some of the other outings. A focus (and a dig) at the power of social media. I like that Joe stands up for what is right- he despairs at the narrow views of the Instagram generation. As always Box educates us on the way of the wild.