another nice book in the pickett series. not as good as some, but overall a very readable book. got to visit with Nate some more and the falconer subplot is pretty good. this series just keeps going, but i wonder how much more he can pull from this series.

C.J. Box has returned with another adventure of game warden, Joe Pickett. A female British executive has disappeared from an upscale guest ranch in Wyoming, and Picket is called into help, as a favor to the current governor. He is also contacted to assist the falconers with the ever-changing rules. Somehow, all is connected in Pickett's world.

Recommended for public libraries and book clubs.

I am a fan of this author and books. I have read several in this series. I have warmed up to Joe through the books that I have read. This time around I found myself struggling to stay invested in the story. Joe could not help me out.

The pacing of the story seemed to drag on and on. There was not a lot happening within the first third of the story. It was mainly Joe reading the facts abut the missing ladies and trying to learn any motive to the killing of the eagles. After a while, I could not take it any longer and skipped ahead. The story did pick up steam the further I got into the book but it still was a bit slow. In addition, to the fact that I found myself not as invested in the characters this go around. This book did not do it for me. Hoping the next is better.

Another great Joe Pickett novel. Lots of action and suspense. Also lots of interesting information about the harmful side effects of wind farms.

This is the first C.J. Box book I have read. I have a feeling that they are better read in order. I've heard his name a lot and thought I would give one a try and based on that, go back and read, what looks like at least 17 others in thisJoe Pickett series. Mr. Pickett is a game warden.

This was fun reading. This was Wyoming in the dead of winter when the temperature can go down to -20 on a good day. Box's descriptions of the cold made me want to pull a blanket around myself even though I'm in perfectly lovely weather at the moment. This is also about cowboys and cowgirls and dude ranches and trying to make a living in the middle of nowhere--all of which Mr. Box seems to have a lot of knowledge of. Everything was believable. I live in Paris, France and can attest to Europeans love of the American west and cowboys and pioneers--things that are completely romantic to them and exist 6,0000 miles away.

The book opens with Pickett being asked to find a missing British woman who had spent a week at a high end Dude ranch. Incidentally Pickett's eldest daughter, Sheridan, works there. The ask was made by the incoming Governor of whom Pickett is not very fond. And it turns out the feeling is quite mutual and aside from the possible dangers of finding a missing woman or body, he has to negotiate many political dangers.

There is a second and tenser situation growing that Pickett gets drawn into by his friend, Nate Romanowski. From reading other reviews, I gather Nate is a fairly familiar presence in this series. Another reason to go back and read the series from the beginning. Nate thinks of Pickett as Dudley Do-good--for good reason. While Nate, fun as he is, must cause Pickett to close his eyes often or not want to be anywhere near his friend as a crisis comes to a head.

Sheridan Pickett adds some feathers to her cap in this book. She is grown up enough to drink wine with her dad and show him that she is comfortable in bar/cafes. While at the same time, he is still her father and she doesn't want him to know her love life or too many intimate things. They have a close relationship however, and she is included on some of the snowmobile rides to look for suspects and shares important information with her dad about the missing woman.

This is a good mystery/thriller. Not all authors can keep up the quality as they write book after book starring the same characters. I suspect if he is like other authors, he has probably had a few that were left wanting. This is not one of them.

And you don't have to be French or a cowboy/cowgirl to enjoy the mystery.
Happy reading.

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on March 27, 2018

Much like the current president, the new governor in Joe Pickett’s Wyoming is a wealthy Republican who doesn’t pay his bills and tries to sell himself as one of the common folk. Joe famously conducted investigations for the former governor, so the new governor decides to give him a try. A British CEO named Kate disappeared in Saratoga, Wyoming, and for reasons that have something to do with budget cuts and passive-aggressive bureaucrats, local law enforcement officers are dragging their spurs instead of finding her. The new governor wants Joe to track down the missing woman because the governor cares about getting bad press in British tabloids.

Kate was last seen at an expensive resort where (oh happy coincidence!) Joe’s youngest daughter Sheridan happens to be working. Nate Romanowski shows up to cause the kind of mayhem that soft-talking Joe doesn’t want to cause himself. As usual, Romanowski points his extra-large gun at everyone he meets and has to talk himself out of shooting them, unless he doesn’t. He commits a murder in just about every novel (this one included) while his law-and-order buddy Joe Pickett looks the other way. It is impossible to believe that someone as resolutely virtuous as Joe would befriend, much less enable, the psychopathic Romanowski. The hypocrisy of ticketing the governor for not having a fishing license (we hear about that in every novel) while letting Romanowski get away with all sorts of violent crimes is hard to swallow.

A subplot involves an industrial burner in which unauthorized and mysterious burning is taking place. Another subplot involves Joe’s reaction to Sheridan’s new boyfriend. I’ve learned to shake my head and ignore Joe’s antiquated notions about appropriate human behavior. There’s only one kind of “real man,” the shy but resolute cowboy who says “shucks,” rarely says more than “yup” or “nope,” and shows no hint of being a metrosexual. In other words, real men don’t have a personality. However, real men wear Carhartt coats, a brand name that appears so many times in The Disappeared I’m wondering whether C.J. Box got paid a product placement fee every time he mentioned it. Box even includes a discussion of how to dress like a real cowboy (hint: wear Carhartt). In any event, I’ve always admired Joe Pickett novels for Box’s storytelling skills more than for Joe, who is a stalwart but lackluster character, despite his choice of clothing.

As he did in Cold Wind, Box has his characters sermonize about the evils of wind energy, falsely claiming that it is more expensive than traditional fossil fuel energy while ignoring the benefits of a clean, renewable energy source. His characters are also upset that the wind-generated electricity is transmitted to California, which automatically makes it bad because California is full of metrosexuals. Box acknowledges that wind energy brings jobs to Wyoming, but one of his characters laments that wind energy cost him his job as a coal miner (clearly not true). Box ignores the fact that Wyoming coal is mined to provide power in other states. If it isn’t bad to transport Wyoming’s coal out of Wyoming, what’s wrong with transporting energy from Wyoming’s wind to other states? As anyone who has been to Wyoming knows, the state has wind to spare.

It is a legitimate concern that wind turbines kill birds (which angers Romanowski and his falconer friends), but coal mines kill people and fossil fuels cause global warming that is killing the planet. Life is full of tradeoffs. Wind energy isn’t perfect, but no energy source is. Still, don’t expect to find a balanced discussion of energy or environmental policy in Box’s books.

In addition to his disdain for clean energy, Box reprises another disappointing element of Cold Wind in The Disappeared, one that will apparently play an even stronger role in the next novel. For fear of spoiling what might be a surprise, I won’t mention it, but I will say that Cold Wind is Box’s worst novel, and he does his readers no favors by rehashing its worst plot elements in The Disappeared.

Fortunately, The Disappeared is a slightly better novel, in part because Box avoids the howlingly silly events that makes Cold Wind so utterly unbelievable. The part of the story that involves the missing Kate is interesting and credible, although it lacks suspense. Romanowski isn’t in enough scenes to ruin the book, and I can’t hold it against Box for ascribing ill-informed opinions about wind energy to his characters, given how many people have a distorted view of clean energy (presumably because they are spoon-fed their opinions by Fox News). However, the part of the story that involves mysterious activities at the burner is intended solely to advance Box’s political views by demonizing the people he disagrees with, and I regarded that as a cheap shot.

The novel’s ending is a cliffhanger setup for the next novel. I’m not sure I’ll bother to read it, as the Joe Pickett series seems to have passed its shelf life.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Joe Pickett, our returning main character, is sent on special assignment to help find a missing English celebrity, last seen on a dude ranch in southern Wyoming, where new and numerous windmill farms are causing some hubbub with environmentalists. Cover-ups & pay-offs & intrigue abound, and when Joe gets too close to discovering things some don't want discovered, there are consequences.

The book stands alone in its story line, but it's beneficial and probably preferable to have read the prior books to be familiar with the backgrounds and histories of the characters. The setting is richly described; readers will feel the chill of a Wyoming winter and envision the beautiful landscape. Whether you're a faithful Box fan or a new reader, you won't be disappointed.

I so enjoy the Joe Pickett novels. It's always nice to sit down with old friends and pick up where we last left off. I can usually consume one of these in a day and enjoy every minute along the way. I think I liked this one more than some because Sheridan made a bigger appearance and it's always fun when Nate is in the picture. Poor Joe, wrecked yet another state truck.

Joe Pickett is on assignment for Governor Allen, and he’s finding that “not doing politics” is not an option. Allen doesn’t seem to have ethics as a part of his vocabulary, instead focusing on money, political backscratching and backstabbing, and image rather than substance. It’s winter in Wyoming, and Allen has demanded that Joe head down to Saratoga to look for a British woman who went missing from a ranch resort during the past tourist season. After being reminded of who is the governor and who is the game warden, Joe reluctantly accepts.

The positive side to this assignment is that Joe’s daughter, Sheridan, works at the ranch so he’ll have the opportunity to check in with her. And she may even be able to provide some valuable background. Just as Joe is leaving for Saratoga, his friend Nate Romanowski shows up with a falconry complaint, so Nate brings his big gun and conspiracy theories along for the ride. Once in Saratoga, Joe and Nate find wide-ranging connections among local thugs, drug trafficking, the construction of a huge windmill farm, the rapid departure of the previous game warden, big money political donors, falconry, and yes, even the missing British woman. The plot complications strain credulity, but in the end Box ties everything but the politics together in a neat package.

As always, Box brings us fully realized characters both in Pickett and the other sympathetic characters and in the nasty politicians and others with ignoble motivations and behaviors. We can see how money corrupts those at all levels of society, and we can only hope that those with less selfish motivations prevail. There are enough parallels between the way that Governor Allen runs his state and the way that the U.S. national political scene is playing out that one has to wonder if Box’ intention was to subtly lampoon the current situation. Regardless of whether there is more going on behind the scenes, the personal relationships play important roles in the book. Sheridan and Joe discover how to relate to each other now that Sheridan is an adult. Nate and Joe dance around Nate’s less than law-abiding perspective. Joe and his wife work together from a distance to figure out how to withstand the dangers to their family’s wellbeing that Governor Allen throws their way.

Throughout the book, the landscape and the weather are the subject of some of Box’ best writing. The bitter cold, driven forward by biting winds across vast spaces, adds to the sense of danger with a reality that not even a gun possesses. The intense nature of the events taking place in and around Saratoga in THE DISAPPEARED make sense in a way that they could not in any other locale. Wyoming is a place of extremes, and it is for the joy of being transported there that I anxiously await each new book in the series.

I will not be doing a formal review on this book; I'm only sharing my opinion here on NetGalley. That's because I don't believe the publisher would like my opinion to be widely known, and I don't really like to give opinions that I can't justify..

Pardon my personal comments here, but this is just among us friends. Years ago, with great excitement, I bought one of the first books in this series. I love series mysteries. I have extensive ties with Wyoming and knowledge of the state and its people. All of my wife's people are from Wyoming, going back for generations. How could the book miss being a hit with me?

I'm not sure how or why, but it just didn't interest me. So I gave the series 7 or 8 years and tried it again.with this book Same result.

I read 2/3 of the book before giving it up because I simply did not care what happened next. I don't know what happened to the missing British lady, but I don't care at all.

Now, why did this happen? I can't put my finger on it, but I can describe the feeling.

Usually when reading a story, I get to know the people and events of the story. I get into the flow of the story immediately and enjoy it. Or I may decide that the kind of story--political intrigue, for instance--just isn't interesting. But I still have been in the flow of the story.

Other times, the story never takes life. It remains words on a page. I'm aware of the author, his or her technique, the likelihood of the described events, and the like. I am not in the flow of the story. It was like that with this book; it simply never came to life. I have to emphasize that this failure for a story to thrive--to take life--is rare for me. I'm not hard to please, not hard to draw into a story.

So, no real review is appropriate. I can't tell you why this book simply does not engage me. I'm really sorry, too; I wanted to enjoy this Wyoming story.

C.J. Box's latest Joe Pickett novel is a great addition to this outstanding series. Wyoming has a new, highly unpleasant governor who tasks Pickett with finding a missing British businesswomen. Meanwhile, Nate Romanowski drags Joe into another case on behalf of a group of falconers. The further Joe delves into both cases, the more he realizes that forces are at work to stop him from solving either case. Both mysteries were interesting and original, and the resolutions were satisfying. One of my favorite things about C.J. Box is that he integrates current events/policy issues into his novels informing readers about important issues while spinning a fabulous tale. The Disappeared tackles two such issues: a headline-grabbing, social media fueled item involving Wyoming dude ranches and an exception to wildlife protection policies granted to those operating clean energy businesses. I was fascinated to learn about both. I highly recommend it.

THE DISAPPEARED: A Joe Pickett Novel
C. J. Box
Putnam Books
ISBN 978-0-399-17662-3
Hardcover
Thriller

THE DISAPPEARED, the latest in the Joe Pickett series, is simply the greatest. C.J. Box has created in Pickett, a Wyoming game warden, an unassuming, very real American hero of (barely) above average skills and superior character, one who deals with the concerns of the average person --- family, food, shelter, job, job and job --- with an awareness of his limitations which does not prevent him from utilizing to the utmost those skills which he has. Contemporary western series --- and if that scares you off, please do not let it --- concerns of the average person (food, shelter, job, job, job) who is very much aware of his limitations yet doesn’t let that stop him from utilizing the skills which he has. If the contemporary Western aspects of the series have heretofore acted as a barrier between you and the series, please crawl over it, under it, or through it. Your effort will be rewarded one-hundredfold.

The driving news in THE DISAPPEARED --- the eighteenth installment in the Pickett canon --- is that Pickett’s good relationship with the governor’s office has come to an end. Colter Allen, the newly inaugurated governor, and Connor Hanlon, his chief of staff, are not exactly warm and fuzzy toward Pickett. inexplicably give him a new assignment that is somewhat above his pay grade. Pickett receives word of this when he is summarily summoned to a remote airfield on a cold January morning to meet with Allen and Hallon. The subject of the assignment is Kate Shelford-Longden, the CEO of a well-known and high-powered British advertising agency. Shelford-Longden disappeared during the previous summer while vacationing in Wyoming at the Silver Creek Ranch. She was last seen leaving the ranch to make a four-hour drive to the airport. Neither she nor her rental car have been seen in the intervening months. Pickett knows the ranch, given that Sheridan, his oldest daughter, is taking a gap year to work there, following her graduation from the University of Wyoming. Pickett can’t figure out why the governor has picked him out of all of the law enforcement personnel in Wyoming to conduct the investigation. When Pickett starts sifting around, he finds that those who investigated before him have summarily resigned just when they seem close to getting an answer. The governor’s office, meanwhile, seems more interested in impeding the investigation than aiding it. Nate Romanowski, Pickett’s old friend, shows up as well, but he is not there to help. Rather, he is seeking assistance with a matter involving falconers, who are inexplicably being blocked from engaging in a perfectly legal activity. Nate has an idea as to what is going on, but Pickett isn’t sure if his unconventional friend is a genius or paranoid. Actually, he is a bit of both, but it takes a while for Pickett and the reader to find out why. A lot of what is occurring has to do with the dramatic vignette which opens THE DISAPPEARED and which involves a sawdust burner which is being put to some extra-curricular use during the late-night hours. Pickett isn’t the sharpest blade in the drawer, but he is persistent and an honorable one. Longtime readers of the series will know walking in that the governor may have picked the wrong game warden if he wanted one who would come up empty-handed. Pickett not only solves one mystery --- with a major assist from Sheridan --- but also solves another that wasn’t on the agenda.

Every word of THE DISAPPEARED is wonderful. It never lags and never disappoints. Box’s clean, cold prose compels you to love the Wyoming countryside as much as he does whether you’re an outdoors guy or not. It’s Box’s character development, however, that makes THE DISAPPEARED a winner. He plays a neat trick here with Pickett who, near the end of THE DISAPPEARED, is probably at his lowest point ever. Just when the reader thinks that there is no way that Pickett is going to resolve his problems, however, a savior --- part deus ex machina, part guardian angel --- unexpectedly appears on the scene. The next book in the series, as far as I am concerned cannot come soon enough. Oh, and one other thing, CJB: that “hospital” thing bugs me the heck out of me as well, which is but one of many reasons that I strongly recommend THE DISAPPEARED.

First the game warden disappeared and then a young English woman does the same. Joe is asked to go find the young woman and see what's going on. It's a new governor sending him and he's not anxious to do it but it's best for his future if he says yes. The only positive thing about it is that he'll get to see his oldest daughter while he's there. She works for the dude ranch the woman disappeared from.

Penguin and Net Galley let me read this book for review (thank you). It is being published today.

He begins to get the idea there's something funny about this job before he finds out the governor's office has the key's to the game warden's house. Why would they have that?

The more people he talks to, the more he finds that there are secrets in this town. He has a reputation as a straight shooter (talking about his personality, not his gun skills) and he finally hears a few things. He eventually locates the game warden. He's been bought off. Then they find out why he was paid to go away. It's not a nice thing.

In the meantime, the English woman is still missing. Then his daughter finds her. Unfortunately she's with the daughter's boyfriend at his cabin. He didn't show up for work because he broke his leg.

Two mysteries were solved but Joe's not done with this case. He's being hauled off to jail because he kept investigating when he was fired and his daughter is waiting for her boyfriend to heal up so she can kill him. There will be more to straighten out in the next book. I'll have to read it to see how it goes!

Once again CJ Box has turned out a page turner. He has been able to keep up with time passing and things changing. In this book, His daughter Sheridan is working at an exclusive "dude" ranch and one of the guests disappears. Joe is asked by the new governor to look into it, but Joe thinks the governor is hiding something. Nate is able to come and help him, so all the best characters are here.

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett is bullied by the governor to take on the case of a missing person, a high power British public relations director. As it happens, the missing woman was last seen at a high end dude ranch where Pickett's daughter is a wrangler. Meanwhile, Joe's friend Nate is back in the picture looking for help from Joe regarding using eagles for hunting. And readers are privy to some shenanigans going on behind the scenes at the construction of largest wind farm in the country. Eventually all of the stories converge of course, but Joe manages to get fired, and the book ends with his fate unresolved until the next installment in the series. Both predictable and far-fetched, nonetheless this was a good read for fans of the series and wilderness mysteries.

THE DISAPPEARED (Lic Invest-Joe Pickett-Wyomong-Contemp) - Good
Box, C.J. – 18th in series
G.P. Putnam’s Sons – Mar 2018
First Sentence: Wylie Frye was used to smelling of smoke and that was long before he became a criminal of sorts.
Wyoming’s new governor wants Game Warder Joe Pickett to find a wealthy CEO and Englishwoman who disappeared after staying at the dude ranch where Joe’s daughter, Sheridan, works. Joe’s friend, master falconer Nate Romanowski, want Joe to find out why the falconers can no longer hunt with eagles in spite of having valid permits. Joe wants to know why the Game Warden seems to have disappeared from the area where the ranch is located. And who is working hard to make Joe go away?
Box is very good at creating a sense of place, and a sense of cold—“Twilight in the mountains brought a special kind of cold. It crept out from the darkness of the lodge pole pine forest where it had spent the daylight hours and it slithered across the top of the snow to sting every inch of exposed human skin. Sounds became sharper and the snow itself became a different texture that squeaked like nails on a chalkboard with every footfall.” His description of what it’s like to drive during the winter in the mountains conveys some of the dangers involved. And most of us don’t think about the risks inherent with snowmobiling. There is fascinating information about the use of predator birds for protecting flocks and endangered birds, as well as killing animal predators, and all the political machinations involved. The relationship of falconry to Shakespeare is a nice touch.
The perspective Joe has on how his relationship has changed with his now-grown daughter is one with which most can identify in some way. For those who have followed the series, it is particularly poignant. The contrast of Joe and Nate is always interesting. They truly are light and dark. Lance, Sheridan’s boyfriend, is someone of whom I hope we see more.
There’s a lot in this book, almost too much. The threads do come together but awkwardly. There isn’t the cohesion one finds in Box’ previous books, and even the humor and suspense are less apparent. The motive is rather weak and far-fetched, particularly when we learn who is behind everything, and the ending rather abrupt. One dearly hopes Box isn’t getting tired of his series.
“The Disappeared” is not Box’s strongest book, but it’s still better than a very good book by other authors. There is an excellent twist, and a good “Western” ending.

Box does it again! All my favorite characters return as Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett attempts to solve the mysterious disappearance of a British socialite from the ranch where Joe's daughter Sheridan works as a wrangler. Joe's mysterious friend Nate is along to help out and the reader knows that things are bound to heat up when Nate is around. Great writing and pacing and a clever cliffhanger make this one enjoyable read.

Who would have thought that a Wyoming Game Warden could be embroiled in so much murder, mayhem, and mystery that it would take at least 18 books to cover all of it? In C.J.Box’s latest in the Joe Pickett series, The Disappeared, (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, March 2018) Joe once again finds himself in unfamiliar and potentially dangerous territory.

Wyoming’s new governor is different. Where his predecessor used Joe Pickett as a valuable asset in solving some of the most difficult cases, the new chief executive governs by threat and coercion. He sends Joe to investigate the months’ old disappearance of a female British executive, who failed to return from a week’s stay at a high-end guest ranch.

The more Joe learns the more complex and sinister the case becomes. Despite the fact that his oldest daughter is a working wrangler at the ranch, clues are few and far between. No one wants to talk about the missing woman, least of all the ranch manager. His position is that any publicity linking the ranch to her or her disappearance is bad publicity.

Joe’s closest friend and one-time federal fugitive Nate Romanowski follows Joe, for more than a single reason. A master falconer, he needs Joe’s help with a licensing situation; plus he is well aware that Joe’s special assignments more often than not require his own special brand of assistance, sometimes (always) outside of the legal ways of obtaining information.

Matters are complicated by the appearance of the disappeared woman’s sister and a British journalist, although the term journalist is utilized in its most all-embracing definition. He is little more than a muck-raking, headline-seeking hack, who spares no opportunity to disparage the area, the people, the state, and even the weather. He manages to so meddle in the investigation that Joe and the local law officials are sent into the wilderness on a wild goose chase which ends up an embarrassment for all involved except the journalist, who delights in its conclusion.

The Disappeared is well-told by an experienced storyteller, although not one to be the first Joe Pickett to read. Occasional references to people and places are best understood by having read some or all of the seventeen previous books in the series. But Joe Pickett fans will not be disappointed – this one is vintage Joe.

C. J. Box always delivers an exciting adventure with Joe Pickett. Joe, Sheridan, and Nate figure out what's going on and solve the mystery as well as the extended criminal activity.

Any opportunity to spend time with Joe Picket and his family is a welcome one. The addition of interesting plot twists, insightful political observations and a compelling story line make this one of his best mysteries to date!