Trophy Hunt

Joe Pickett #4

by C.J. Box

Librarian’s note: This is a previously-published edition of
Kindle ASIN: B000P46S0M.

Shaken by the brutal killing of a wild moose, game warden Joe Pickett becomes increasingly alarmed when a herd of cattle, and then two people, are murdered by the same perpetrator.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Thriller, Westerns, Crime, Audiobook, Mystery Thriller

348 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

C. J. Box is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 24 novels including the Joe Pickett series. He won the Edgar Alan Poe Award for Best Novel (Blue Heaven, 2009) as well as the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, two Barry Awards, and the 2010 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Award for fiction. He was recently awarded the 2016 Western Heritage Award for Literature by the National Cowboy Museum as well as the Spur Award for Best Contemporary Novel by the Western Writers of America in 2017. The novels have been translated into 27 languages.

Box is a Wyoming native and has worked as a ranch hand, surveyor, fishing guide, a small town newspaper reporter and editor, and he co-owns an international tourism marketing firm with his wife Laurie. They have three daughters. An avid outdoorsman, Box has hunted, fished, hiked, ridden, and skied throughout Wyoming and the Mountain West. He served on the Board of Directors for the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo. Box lives in Wyoming.

--from the author's website

Series:
* Joe Pickett

http://us.macmillan.com/author/cjbox

Reviews

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like CJ Box. Savage Run and Winterkill were both good pot boilers that showed him becoming a better writer in this genre. Trophy Hunt I felt was a step back. There was a weirdness to the story that just didn't fit. It was like taking part of a slasher film and transplanting it to a Joe Pickett book. Or maybe an X-Files to a Joe Pickett book. It just didn't quite work. Also the whole metaphysical stuff with Nate didn't make a whole lot of sense and found myself skipping those paragraphs. CJ went back to being predictable. And the whole kid thing needs to end. I don't want to say anything because it give away the end. It was ok. That is all I can say about the book.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Consistently good. Pickett is often fallible, which goes to making him not only likable, but believable. One way or the other, he figures it out. The series is good not simply due to how the predicament is solved. It's the points in between, where the characters and intricacies matter.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much woo-woo

The fourth novel in the Joe Pickett series opens with the Wyoming game warden on a fly fishing trip with his daughters, Sheridan and Lucy. They discover the carcass of a moose that has been mutilated. Then some cows are found with similar mutilations. There is a report a grizzly on the loose in the area and others are quick to blame the bear. Joe isn't so sure. Something is off. There are no tracks around the moose or cows. No sign any wildlife has fed off them. No clear indication of how they died. It is as if they fell out of the sky. Soon some are talking about aliens. "Woo-woo". Then two men are found dead with similar mutilations.

Because two men have been killed a task force is formed and Joe is asked to take part. Not that he wants to. There several agencies involved … the sheriff, the FBI, the district attorney. Plenty of inter-agency rivalry and egos. Joe would rather investigate on his own with the help of his friend Nate Romanowski. Joe thinks all the talk of aliens, government conspiracy, Arabs, etc. is "woo-woo". Luckily Joe is a pretty smart guy and is able to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Despite the "woo-woo" this was an enjoyable story. Joe and his wife, Marybeth, are still recovering from the death of their foster daughter. Sheridan continues to grow and mature. There are a couple of new characters … Ike and his brother Not Ike that it would be nice to see in future stories. What I like most about these stories is the protagonist Joe Pickett and his family. Joe is one of the good guys, he loves his family and his job, and fights to protect the environment.

[Bill Riggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems like the author is finally finding the voice of this series. Each one keeps getting better. The character, Joe Pickett, is growing as well, at least in this one he doesn’t make one stupid mistake after another. The mystery is intriguing and I can see why some people may be upset by not getting all the answers but the same is true in real life- not everything is explained.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A moose, cows, and men were killed and mutilated. Something is going on in Twelve Sleep County. A grizzly bear was spotted at the scene. Could it be the grizzly bear? This one was a bit out there.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great addition to the series. The animal mutilations and people being skinned alive may be a trigger warning for some people. I like how Joe Pickett is written as an ordinary guy instead of a kind of super hero. At this point reading Joe Pickett is like reading an old friend. Highly recommend the series.

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars for Trophy Hunt: Joe Pickett, Book 4 by C. J. Box read by David Chandler.

I can’t believe that Joe Pickett got to investigate cattle mutilations. The author did a wonderful job of weaving this subject into a complicated storyline. This is definitely one of my favorite books in the series.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to the audiobook with Simon while we worked on our house, mostly painting! Generally speaking I am not too squeamish but some of the details included in this volume of the Joe Pickett series made me squirm just a bit.

Standout quotes:

"Their eyes looked like old jewelry."

"His face was as round as a hub cap."

"He was the chairman of the Saddle Stream Library Foundation. He had once told Joe and Mary Beth that his passions in life were reading books and eradicating vermin."

"Chewing on the bacon, Joe drove down Lane C, he tossed the second half of the strip to [his dog] Maxine."

"The huge trailer stood out as if it were a space craft that had docked in a cemetery."

Reference to a lack of good parenting in childhood: "Cam had been driving without a road map. Cam needed Marie for structure as Joe needed Mary Beth."

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe is caught up in a case that appears to have paranormal activity involvement. I'm not sure, but I'm not big on the paranormal angle, like Joe. But something strange is going on and Joe is determined to find out how the animal mutilations and the murders are taking place. Like usual, Joe is methodical and pursues each lead and theory which leads us on a convoluted path to the truth. It may be a long and winding way, but C.J. Box makes the journey enjoyable.

Animals are turning up dead and mutilated in Joe Pickett's little patch of Twelve Sleep County, Wyoming. As the Game Warden, he is determined to find the killer, even when a lot of people think the deaths smack of the paranormal. A task force is formed after two men turn up dead and mutilated also and Joe finds himself on the task force with the Sheriff. Neither man is a big fan of the other, to put it mildly. Joe seems to be upsetting a lot of people with his investigation, but that only makes Joe more determined to find the killer.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far, my favorite of the Joe Pickett series. It moves from dead fish, to dead moose, a bear on the loose, cattle, horse, and human mutilations, and includes a couple of my favs, Nate and Not Ike. Liked the story lines and directions.

[Lorraine Southern · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoying these books, they’re easy to engage with and fast reads with good storylines and characters you like. Can’t understand why it’s taken me so long to read them!

[Jennifer M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was good but also difficult. The animal and human mutilations were hard to listen to of course. Overall it was a good story but I can see it wouldn’t be good for everyone. I just really like Joe and Mary Beth, Nate too. They are quality people who don’t stray from having an upstanding moral character. I enjoyed it overall.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well this book was way to far off base for me and game warden Joe Pickett. This just wasn't realistic for Wyoming. I can't even say I enjoyed the story line. Hope this is the only disappointing Pickett novel. Get into the gore a bit more and it could be Halloween.

[Book Concierge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book number four in the Joe Picket mystery series opens with Wyoming Game Warden Joe taking his daughters on a fishing trip. They discover the carcass of a moose, and Joe is disturbed to notice signs of mutilation. It’s only the beginning of the nightmare.

I like this series, mostly because I really like Joe Picket (and his wife, Marybeth). He is the quintessential “good guy,” fighting to preserve the environment and a peaceful setting for his family and the residents of Twelve Sleep County. Box gives us plenty of action – in addition to the moose there are cattle mutilations, a horse is attacked, and two men killed. His daughter’s playmates seem bent on leading her into trouble, and I about screamed in fright along with the kids when …. Well, I won’t spoil the action for you.

But I was dissatisfied with the ending. Too much “aliens” mumbo-jumbo, and a too-convenient demise made me feel as if Box had run out of ideas and turned to 1950s sci-fi films for inspiration. Still, it’s a good story and a fast read; I haven’t given up on the series, but I’m in no hurry to read the next one.

[Scott A. Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe had a tough one this time. Box really made things difficult. The supernatural component held throughout, never explained. I liked that. This one at it’s core was about greed. I think that’s what made it so hard for Picket to solve and understand.

Hopefully he won’t have to deal with Barnum much more. Hell, Joe’s a better Sheriff anyway.

[Claudette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Glad I didn't start with this one because the others have been good. As Joe Pickett said, I hate the woo-woo stuff.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are More Things in Heaven and Earth

Well, this was a weird one for Joe Pickett. No, seriously really weird, like cattle mutilations and well it started with a moose that Joe found while out fly fishing with his daughters. He could have lived without finding a bloated and partially dissected moose when his girls were with him. The air felt strange and shimmery and nothing had touched the moose carcass that had obviously been there for days.

Then came the murder on the ranch where Joe’s mother-in-law lives, and it seems very similar to the animal mutilations… and another man murdered too far away to have been committed by the same human murderer.

No matter what, Joe Pickett’s life is always interesting and sometimes it’s downright strange. This time Joe, his family and his friend Nate Romanowski is in the middle of one of the strangest cases Twelve Sleep has ever seen. You don’t want miss this five star dandy.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now that was a quick read. It helped that it was a miserable rainy day today and I had a lot of time in the afternoon to sit back and spend some time in Joe Pickett's Wyoming. I was fortunate to be able to keep reading till I finished the book. We're in Wyoming and a bull moose and then cattle have been found mutilated. It's a challenge for game warden Joe Pickett. When the bodies of two men who were mutilated and killed are found, Joe joins forces with local authorities and an FBI agent to find whoever--or whatever--is doing the mutilations and killing...A good mystery that actually gets chilling at times...and, a big plus for me, is that it's setting is the West. There's still a wild--and dangerous-- frontier out there...

[Irena Pasvinter · Rating 2 out of 5]

As usual, this review reflects my personal subjective impression of the book. If, unlike me, you adored it, good for you.

I enjoyed the first three of Joe Pickett's mysteries, unlike this fourth installment in the series. I've been wondering if me consuming the first three as audiobooks and this one as an ebook had something to do with it. I doubt it, though. Listening instead of reading might have masked some of the instances of weak writing, but surely not all of them. And it wouldn't have turned the dragging plot into an exciting adventure.

I think sentences like the ones below would make me cringe even in an audio book:

Marie, who was petite, dark-haired, and attractive in an open-faced way, clapped her hands together.

Cam turned to her. Cam was handsome, with light, wavy hair and sharp, blue eyes. He was ambitious in a way that seemed to encourage others to root for him.

Don Hawkins wore a bandanna over his face and paced among the dead cows.

Hailey, who was dark-haired with big brown eyes, liked to talk about gore.

Still, an engrossing story could have compensated for lapses in writing quality, at least partially. No such luck. Trophy Hunt revolves around seemingly unexplainable and mysterious cases of animal mutilations. Stumbling in circles from one mutilation to another, it never develops into a truly engrossing and satisfying narrative.

Eventually, the criminals who used the animal mutilations to mask murders and advance their evil plans, are caught. But the question of who else had been mutilating the animals all around the place and why is left unanswered.

“Too many holes in the earth,” Nate had said. “Maybe something was released into the atmosphere that drew in a force like putrid meat draws in flies.” Her dad had said, “Or maybe not,” in that dismissive way he had, and changed the subject. When Nate tried to steer him back, her dad told Nate, “I don’t want to talk about something we’ll never have the knowledge to understand.” Then: “Nate, I hate woo-woo crap.”

We certainly have this in common with Joe: I too hate woo-woo crap. And to me this felt like a woo-woo crap ending.

I still want to read the next book sometime, especially that a friend (who liked #4 much better than I did) is reading it now.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leave it to me to love the one book that everyone seems to like the least in this series. I did this before with James Patterson's Zoo. Everyone hated it and I'm over here like, "Wow this is one of the best books ever."

Your all probably wondering what the hell is wrong with me. Well it is quite an extensive list of what's wrong with me, but I will save that for a different time. I think what I liked best about this particular book was the "WOO-WOO Factor". I love anything that borders upon an explanation that is not immediately explained through point blank science. I love scientific explanations, but I also love that mystery of "what if". I think that explains my deep love of the sasquatch lore. Stranger things have happened so why not expand the box a little and just take it under consideration for a moment or two.

So anyways in this particular story cattle and some wildlife have been found mutilated. However the mutilations are not normal and seem to have been done with surgical precision. Joe and his daughters find the first one while out fly fishing and then more happen as time goes on. Joe is put on a task force with his favorite sheriff and everyone is investigating. The sheriffs deputy throws in the alien idea and everyone seems to be just a little extra paranoid.

I love the twists and turns that occur in the story and I honestly was kept guessing until the last 100 pages or so. I also love the creep out atmosphere that went along with this book. I thought it was written quite well.

[Suzzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite of the Joe Pickett series but still a good read. The last handful of chapters saves the book from the slow start. The woo woo stuff didn’t bother me so that didn’t take away from the story but I get why others felt it did. For sure an acquired taste and if it’s not up your alley it will take away from the story.

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 4th Joe Pickett book was solid enough. Joe remains a solid lead for this intriguing neo-western crime series.

This instalment had Joe investigating animal mutilations that, in typical Joe Pickett style, spiralled into Joe investigating regular murders that then blossomed into a wider conspiracy!

Rating: 3.5 stars.

Audio Note: David Chandler did OK with the audio version. Struggled a bit with the female voices but was fine with everything else.

[Asheley T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

My very favorite Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett is investigating a string of animal mutilations when he becomes involved in the investigation of a couple of area murders. Normally this would be the jurisdiction of other local authorities, but these two murders have characteristics strikingly consistent with the animal mutilations: the two bodies have been damaged in exactly the same way. These crimes are horrific and terrifying to area residents. Joe will bump heads with the same local authorities as normal, because he has a tendency to want to do things correctly, morally right, and by the book where some of the other officers don't seem to care about that. The goodness in Joe is one of the reasons that I enjoy this series so much.

Besides Joe, the best thing in this book is how big the roles that his daughter Sheridan and his friend Nate Romanowski play. It's fun to watch Sheridan grow up and become more perceptive to her surroundings as these stories progress. Nate is a falconer and a loner and a bit of an oddity to the other folks around, and I love everything about him and his place in these stories. He has some secrets and some darker ways of obtaining the truth than Joe does, but the two work very well together.

My least favorite thing about this story is the amount of "woo-woo" in it. That's what Joe calls it. What I mean is that there is a lot of talk of supernatural, magical type stuff with regard to the cause of the animal and human deaths. Lots of area folks think maybe there is some magic involved or something. Just like Joe, I sort of rolled my eyes at all of it. (Even though it does have a place in the story.)

A fun thing about this one: my little town, where I live, plays a big role in the story too! That happens so rarely that when I heard my town come up and then keep popping up, I was overjoyed. This is probably very nerdy of me.

This one didn't pull on my feelings and emotions like Winterkill did for reasons that I don't want to spoil (in case you haven't read Winterkill). Just, the emotional attachment to the injured parties and those in danger wasn't there this time, because this one was a little less directly dangerous to his family and friends-but only a little bit less dangerous.

Trophy Hunt takes place approximately a year-ish after the horrific events of Winterkill. Joe and his wife Marybeth are barely managing to get by on Joe's game warden salary, so Marybeth begins to take on a career of her own. Sheridan is twelve years old and has tons of grit. Lucy is now seven years old and has a big role in this story as well. The Wyoming setting is still strong and a huge, huge reason why I keep coming back to this series.



Audiobook Notes: I love David Chandler's narration of this series so much and I'm so glad that I took the chance on the first one because I can't imagine not listening to it. David Chandler's narration has completely become Joe Pickett to me, and I fangirl so hard over the way he narrates Nate Romanowski: gravelly and a little dark. I can't recommend these audiobooks more.

Title: Trophy Hunt by C.J. Box
Series: Joe Pickett #4
Narrated by: David Chandler
Publisher: Recorded Books
Length: 11 hours, 0 minutes, Unabridged

[Joe King · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm reading through the reviews and I just don't get the love for this one. It had some good qualities, for example great suspense, but there are way too many unanswered questions and significant plot holes. The author also tried too hard with at least one twist that didn't really make sense. The supernatural stuff is out of place too. If the first three books had horror/supernatural elements then it would be fine, but it's out of nowhere for the series.

Because I like the setting and the main character I'll read the next one, but it better be great.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the Joe Pickett series by C.J. Box...and I'm in the midst of rereading the series...this one deals with developments involving a rash of animal mutilations and a couple of murders...the characterization of a good man and family dealing with the everyday mundane and evil is truly entertaining...I'm hooked!!!

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this is book #4 in the Joe Pickett series, I've already read most of them in this series. I liked this one and I'm a fan of this author. He delivers exactly what I've come to love and expect when I settle into on of his books....and the fact that I don't have to read them order, is a plus.

He's not overly wordy (which I appreciate) and he doesn't do long drawn out drama (which is a good thing). His stories are character driven and I like the tension he builds. The core group of characters are likable and they are easy to root for, especially when they are in harms way....and that happens a lot.

I loved the pacing, the twists, and the satisfying resolutions at the end. It makes me believe karma is paying attention.

This one had a bit of a supernatural element which was new. I liked the way it was addressed though. It could have come off as hokey, but Joe being the skeptic that he is, helped to keep it tethered to reality. So 4 stars.

[Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent installment in C.J. Box's Joe Pickett series.

[Sandra Hoover · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fantastic additon to the Joe Pickett series. This was a weird case for sure! I love following Joe as he works through the clues and figures things out. Also a big fan of Nate! As well as Joe's wife and girls. I'm continuing listening to this series. The audios are great!

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up
I love the characters and the stories. There was a lot going on here and I didn't figure it all out.

[Laz the Sailor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one confounded me with multiple perspectives and many loose ends. I enjoy the descriptions of the wilderness and wildlife, but the characters are evolving, but not in a good way. I won't be continuing this series.