I love Joe Pickett and recommend the series to people all the time. This book does not even read like the same author is writing it. This is not the book for me. The dialogue is stilted, and the characters one-dimensional. I am sending this review back to you but not publishing it elsewhere.

For most of her career, Investigator Cassie Dewell has been after the long-haul trucker/serial killer known as the Lizard King. He killed her partner while she was with the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s office in Montana, and has managed to escape her traps in North Carolina, and now in C. J. Box’s Paradise Valley he again manages to get away after her flawless trap (so she thought) goes awry in Bakken County, North Dakota. Cassie takes the blame for mistakes and loses her job because of it. The same day Kyle Westergaard (whom we first met in the previous novel, Badlands) and his friend Raheem disappear. As a private investigator Cassie begins looking into their disappearance and soon suspects the Lizard King is back to his old behavior. As Cassie tracks him from North Dakota to Ekalaka, Montana, then finally to Paradise Valley near Yellowstone National Park can she finally capture the Lizard King and save his victims?
As always C. J. Box delivers great writing, an excellent plot, and keeps you in enough suspense the whole time that you can’t help but speed through the book because you have to know what is going to happens next. If you have been following The Highway series you won’t want to miss this fourth installment. 4 stars.

First Sentence: “The trap is set and he’s on his way,” Cassie Dewell said to Sheriff Jon Kirkbride.
Inspector Cassie Dewell has been hunting the Lizard King, a serial killer of truck-stop prostitutes, runaways, and of her former boss. Now, she hopes she has set up the perfect lure to get him to come to her. Yet she is also concerned about the disappearance of Kyle Westergaard, a young man with mild fetal-alcohol syndrome, and his friend Raheem.
Box does a very good job of explaining eh details of things; lot lizards, the way in which independent truckers work, etc. At the same time, he does it without disrupting the flow or making one feel as though he has dumbed-down the information.
The characters are very well drawn and developed. The rest of the cast are people one would like to know, one has been unfortunate enough to know, and those one hopes never to know. Cassie and Wyatt, in particular, are wonderful characters.
There are villains, and then there are villains! From the very first book in which the Lizard King appeared, “The Highway,” it was clear Box had created one of the most frightening villains there is, partly because the type of crimes he commits are actually happening across our interstate highways. That said, one needn’t have read the first three books, as Box also does a good job of catch up new readers.
Box is always such a pleasure to read. He is a wonderful wordsmith with a very visual style who creates excellent analogies—“…driving an 18-wheeler was liking piloting a ship on the ocean. The captain of that ship had an entire blue-water sea in front of him and he could go anywhere on it.” In spite of this being his 24th book, plus some short stories, there’s no sign of them being formulaic or getting stale. Each is informative and very exciting. So much so that I often forget to make notes while reading
“Paradise Valley” is filled with excellent suspense, yet comes to a complete and satisfying ending.

PARADISE VALLEY (Pol Proc-Cassie Dewell, North Dakota, Contemp) – VG
Box, C.J. – 3rd in series
Minotaur Books – July 2017

Another great effort from CJ Box. It's not Joe Pickett but my customers enjoy anything he has written.

“Paradise Valley” by C. J. Box is an intense story following Cassie Dewell as she continues her search for the deviant long-haul trucker she first encountered in “The Highway.” It is not necessary to have read the two previous books in this series to grasp this one.
This story begins about four years after “The Highway,” and Cassie is working in another state for another agency. She is planning her wedding and setting up the final trap for The Lizard King. The book starts with a bang, literally, as the scheme does not go as planned. Heat, fire, smoke, and ash fill the Dakota sky. Lives are lost; jobs are lost, and all hope seems to be lost.
On the other side of town, two teen-aged boys have planned a “Tom Sawyer” type trip down the river on a raft. They load up their provisions, push their rafts into the water, and set out down The Missouri River on their way to New Orleans. They disappear without a trace. They were friends of Cassie’s son Ben, and since she is now unemployed, she agrees to help the families find the boys since law enforcement’s effort has been minimal and unproductive.
The book is all about those chases, the continued pursuit of “The Lizard King,” and the search for two boys on their adventure. In a dark race against time, these two quests traverse several states and intersect in a frightening way. The action is dialogue driven, and the pace is solid and swift. The characters are diverse, complex, and true to life as they struggle to cope with seemingly untenable situations. All are hurting, and all are seeking an end to the insanity.
“Paradise Valley” is gripping and addictive, and it does not end well for everyone involved. I received a copy of “Paradise Valley” from St. Martin’s Press, C. J. Box, and NetGalley in exchanged for my impartial review. It is not an easy book to read, but it is a very good one.
C. J. Box will be at The Book Carnival, Orange, CA on July 29, 2017 to discuss “Paradise Valley.” I cannot wait.
to hear what is next

I'm definitely a fan of the way C.J. Box can weave a tale. Strong characters, good guys and bad guys, a compelling story line and plenty of action characterize this the fourth book in the Highway Quartet series. Box fans won't be disappointed!

In this 3rd in a quartet, Bakken County detective Cassie Dewell sets a trap for the Lizard King that goes tragically awry. The Feds and the ambitious new County Attorney blame her and she quits, returning to Montana.

As this develops, "Badlands"' star Kyle Westergaard (born with a mild case of fetal alcohol syndrome that affected his ability to speak) embarks on a long planned Huck Finn style boat trip down the Missouri with his friend Raheem. They disappear as does a cheerful middle aged housewife named Amanda.

As Cassie continues her search for The Lizard King, readers wonder who's hunting whom and who will be left standing?

I started reading CJ Box when he was the featured author speaking at my library. His character Joe Pickett, the Wyoming wilderness, and all the rest hooked me forever. When he first ventured out with new characters, I has a little hesitant, but quickly loved them too.
I look forward to the next, no matter whether the main character is Joe Pickett, Cassie Dewell, Nate Romanowski, or someone new.

4.5 stars
Cassie Dewell almost caught the Lizard King, but he managed to get away. He's back and she's once again, she is after him. She works months to set a trap for him, but it goes horribly wrong and she loses her job working for the Bakken County sheriff's department. When a friend of her son's goes missing, his grandmother wants to hire her to find him. Working independently and with contacts she's made, Cassie is trying to find Kyle , while looking for the Lizard King at the same time.
CJ Box knows how to write a good mystery with some strong characters. I hope this isn't the last we see of Cassie.

Thank you CJ Box for another standalone novel featuring Cassie going after the Lizard King!! Will he be captured for good or surface again? Read this heart pounding, adreline fillled novel to find out.

Cassie is still hunting a serial killer. He was caught once but got away on a technicality. She knows he's still killing prostitutes. He gets pleasure from it. This time she's going to make sure he doesn't walk away...

St Martin's Press allowed me to read a copy of this book for review (thank you). It will be published July 25th.

Mr. Box always writes complex mysteries with plenty of action, lots of tension and unknown factors influencing the outcome.

While Cassie is setting a trap for the Lizard King, she's also having a few problems with her son. He's growing up and he's not so easily put off if she has to work overtime. He'd really like to help her in her investigations but he can't. He understands but he resents it. Then his best friend goes missing...

They have the whole team out setting a trap for the Lizard King. His truck turns in and he backs up to the dock. The cops move in and suddenly the truck blows up! Cassie loses her fiance and several friends in the explosion and there's not enough of a body to identify the driver. After she's recovered a bit from the deaths, she begins to wonder if that was really him driving that truck. She soon finds out it was not. She's been fired, however, and shouldn't be investigating. She persists.

Two boys intended to float down the river and eventually get to New Orleans. Maybe a lady will lift her top in front of them and they'll get to see her boobs. They don't make it, the Lizard King grabs them. The crimes continue and get more gross. One boy is killed and the one with the speech abnormality is kept alive.

The Lizard King is evil. He kills people whether he wants to or not. The ending is ironic. His own evil is used against him. I'll be thinking of this one for a long time.

The Lizard King, the long-haul trucker serial killer who escaped justice in Box’s The Highway is back and Cassie Dewell is determined to get him this time. As Chief Inspector of the Bakken County Sheriff’s Department headquartered in Grimstad, North Dakota, she has been tracking the murderer of dozens of prostitutes and using very good circumstantial evidence has succeeded in setting up a sting operation to lure him to Grimstad. But the crafty killer not only evaded the trap but caused mayhem at the sting site and kidnapped two locals, housewife Amanda and Kyle, a 14 year old who is her son’s best friend.

As a result of her miscalculation, Cassie is fired and only the pleas of Kyle’s grandmother get her to pursue the case as a private investigator. What follows is a tense pursuit that does not let up until the final page. On her way she finds allies who believe in her theory; a cantankerous old wilderness guide with possible early stage Altzheimer’s, a Montana sheriff who is willing to bend the rules to help her, and an old friend who might become more to her.

The suspense does not let up from page one to the end. To discuss the mystery any more would be a discredit to the reader. Suffice to say, it is a book worthy of Edgar winner Box.

I have heard C.J. Box referred to as a writer's writer, as he is award winning, critically acclaimed, and admired by other authors. It's so easy to see why as his prose is sharp and evocative and his stories never slow.
Box is a resident of Wyoming and most of his books are set there but at times he wanders into Montana and North Dakota as he does in this third Cassie Dewell book.
This is the third book in the saga of the murderous Lizard King, but Box catches up the new reader to the series quite well.
Cassie is an investigator with the Bakken County Sheriff's Dept, in North Dakota, or she is until her plan to trap the Lizard King goes horribly wrong and she is made a scapegoat who then has to resigns. She has moved from Montana to the oil fields of Bakken during the oil boom and has stayed in Bakken with her son, Ben and her mother Isabel during the oil bust. But now heartbroken and nearly broken, Cassie is on her own with her belief that the Lizard King still lives to torture and murder.
The Lizard King is an independent long distance truck driver who kidnaps women from truck stops, plays with them and then discards them; usually where their bodies are never found. But now like so many middle aged men, he just wants to retire and spend time with his family. Though in his case he has to make his own family and maybe he needs to be a bit of a disciplinarian.
Darn it, a man has a right to a quiet retirement. Cassie disagrees and so does her friend, Leslie Behaunek the prosecutor in North Carolina who had the Lizard King but lost him.
While Cassie is looking for a hint of the Lizard King, two young friends of her son have disappeared on a Huck Finn type adventure down the Missouri River. Cassie is hired by the grandmother of one of boys to find them. The first hint of the boys is in a tiny Montana town far from the Missouri River.
Cassie returns to Montana to investigate the boys' disappearance, realizing there may be a connection to the Lizard King when she discovers a small cluster of disappearances in Bakken the day of the tragic attempt to stop the Lizard King's long reign of terror.
An old fashioned posse is formed with the help of a long retired, old outfitter Bull Mitchell, Sheriff Bryan Pederson of the Park County Sheriff’s Dept and three of his deputies. Hopefully Bull and the Sheriff will reappear in subsequent Cassie Dewell books as they are rough, tough, and ready to go. Did I happen to mention that Bull is also downright amusing and Pederson has intriguing possibilities?
With the formation of the posse and the trip in the mountains of Montana, Cassie finds her mojo again and becomes the tough decisive law officer she has always been.
As always the beauty of the landscape figures strongly in Box's novels.
He also has his usual say about the over regulation and interference by the government. Rarely is the government above the local level featured in any positive manner in Box's books. But then again, he is a Western writer.
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest and fair review.

A super good suspense with many twists and turns in the plot. I really enjoyed the characters in this book and the author's writing.

Cassie Dewell is a detective for the Bakken County, North Dakota sheriff’s department. Her low self-esteem and single Mom status don’t keep her from being the best investigator in the department and her boss, Sheriff Kirkbride knows this. But she is obsessed with the one that got away… a long-haul trucker/ serial killer… Ronald Pergram… the Lizard King. Yes, Cassie knows who he is and has once almost caught him… almost. But he somehow got away and is still out there, trolling truck stops for unsuspecting prostitutes who he can overpower, torture, and murder. As an independent trucker with no address and cash payment for everything, he manages to evade all law enforcement.

So Cassie tries to set a trap for him. She posts a load for pick up out of Grimstad, where she now lives, in hopes of luring the Lizard King to her. One day, he calls to book the load and Cassie assembles a pose of deputies at the local factory where the fictitious load awaits. But Pergram smells the trap and sends a substitute driver in his truck. He packs C4 explosives under the driver's seat of the tractor and detonates it with a cell phone call just as the truck backs into the loading dock. The substitute driver and three deputies are killed in the explosion and three others are injured. A housewife observes Pergram in a pickup truck on a hill overlooking the factory as it explodes. He kidnaps her and travels back roads into hiding.

Coincidently the same day, two young teenage boys from Grimstad leave on an adventure in a small boat on the Missouri River. They stumble across Pergram at his first hideout as they attempt to camp for the night. Pergram grabs them and puts electronic dog collars on them to control their movements… a method he uses frequently on his victims. He then heads west into the Montana mountains near a secluded area of Yellowstone known as Paradise Valley. No one suspects Pergram is still alive or that he has the woman or the two boys… no one that is except Cassie.

But Cassie takes a hard political fall and takes Sheriff Kirkbride with her as the Bakken County DA blames her for the lives lost due to the explosion. She quits before she is fired but can’t give up on hunting the Lizard King, especially since she suspects he has prisoners. She heads to Montana, a private citizen now, gathering clues from local law enforcement and citizens as she goes. She can’t let this scumbag get away again no matter what it costs her.

I love it when a book exceeds my expectations and this one does just that. Box develops a protagonist, you can’t help but revere. Her weaknesses are relatable and her courage and tenacity admirable. Add in her personal code and distain for politics and it’s easy to compare her to Harry Bosch. I think we’ll see more of Cassie Dewell.

Thanks to Netgalley for the preview.

Avid readers of C. J. Box, will appreciate another fix even though the Cassie Dewell series is, for me, not quite up his other projects. This installment does show some bright spots, however. For one, I cannot get enough of "crusty and stubborn as hell" Bull Mitchell and hope to see more of him future efforts. An "old gals network", ala Women's Murder Club, appears to be in the making which has possibilities. Resetting back to Montana is a plus. Finally, writing out the Lizard King is a BIG PLUS - I hated everything about that character and not in a good way. So, yep, it is another Box, it is not the best, but it is worth reading if for no other reason than to say sayonara to LK and to get a few laughs and building respect for the Bull.

(2) I have read this secondary series by C.J Box because of the powerhouse he has become with Joe Pickett. This series is nowhere near that good, but it has been reasonably entertaining. I liked the plot and I will be interested to see where he takes Cassie from here. Reasonable Summer e book reading.

Thanks to Minotaur Books and Netgalley for an eARC of this book.
An entertaining, keep you on the edge of your seat, book! It kept me up late to finish it.
This is #3 in the Cassie Dewell Series but would be just fine as a standalone. The backstory gets filled in and it mostly is not that important to the action of the book. The backstory continues and is a peg upon which to hang the next in the series. I liked this book better than the first 2 in the series but maybe it was a matter of time and place and mood. The characters are interesting and likable and while they are not fleshed out in depth, they are still pretty believable. I continue to be amazed by the male author's ability to put himself in the head of his female protagonist.

This is a book that won't tax your brain but will provide a few hours of entertainment. This would normally mean 3 stars for me but I gave it 4 on the basis of great writing and compelling action.
This one has more blood and gore than the usual Box. The killer's method of killing is different and not entirely pleasant.

Cassie Dewell is the Chief Investigator for the BCSD in Grimstad, ND. She is getting ready to marry a fellow member of the force. Cassie has been after the Lizard King since he got away previously. The Lizard King is a long haul trucker who picks up prostitutes at truck stops, holds them while he films himself torturing them then kills them. The trap is set to bring down the Lizard King once and for all.

This is the 3rd book in a series but could very easily be a stand alone. Cassie is a great character, determined, a bull dog when she focuses in on an investigation. This book has local politics, an evil sadistic villain, and it will take you on a non stop ride of suspense til the last page of the book. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy.

Having long read all that C. J. Box writes, this was a delightful detour from his more famous characters in the Joe Pickett series. With his signature genius plot development talents, Box creates a new and highly sympathetic cast of heroes and heroines, while sprinkling in criminals committing crimes every bit as heinous as the ones we've come to "enjoy" in his other books. Pick this one up; highly recommended!