“Tell Sherry April Called”

After the smashing success of his 2008 novel, the Edgar Award-nominated standalone Blue Heaven, best-selling writer C.J. Box returns with a vengeance in Below Zero, a gripping and heartbreaking story that features his Wyoming game warden, Joe Pickett. Below Zero begins with a text message to Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan (“Sherry”), supposedly sent by the family’s foster child, April. Trouble is, Joe saw April die in an FBI shootout gone horribly wrong six years ago (see Winterkill, 2003).

The person claiming to be April knows things about the Picketts that are very convincing. As Joe tries to investigate further--and meanwhile keep the FBI off his back--we also watch as a father-and-son team of lunatics kill several people in the name of saving the planet. The amazing Box has a strong narrative engine that is sped up, rather than slowed down by recounting memorable details about the Wyoming backwoods. And the sending and tracing of text messages has never sounded so fascinating.