"excellent Joe Pickett mystery"

Attorney Clay McCann walked into the Bechler River Ranger Station in Yellowstone National Park holding a still warm weapon while informing the ranger that about a half hour ago he killed four campers. A few months later Wyoming Governor Spencer Rulon visits former State Game and Fish Department Game Warden Joe Pickett, who was fired by the agency's Director Randy Pope (see IN PLAIN SIGHT), at the ranch of Joe's father-n-law to ask a favor. Though McCann got away with murder on a technicality, Rulon shows him a note from one of the victims just before he was murdered that implies the illegal stealing of resources that could impact the revenues of the state. He wants to look into whatever this "Yellowstone Dick" was alluding to as a state has no jurisdiction in a national park.

Joe begins his quiet investigation with the help of his friend falconer Nate Romanowski. They soon obtain the assistance of park ranger Judy Demming, who like most of her peers remains reeling that the cold blooded killer freely roams Yellowstone while four caring environmentalists are dead. They begin to find a link between the homicides and questionable bio-mining rights that would destroy Yellowstone's famous hot springs, but McCann and his partners do not mind adding three more murders to their count.

In his seventh Joe Pickett mystery, C. J. Box is at his best as he describes the "Stone" with adulation for its exquisiteness while also using a loophole over jurisdiction between the Feds and the state. The story line is fast-paced as Joe and his teammates begin to uncover the contemptuous illegal waste of natural renounces to make a profit without regard by stripping the beauty from the "Stone". Fans and environmentalists (except perhaps the EPA political appointees) will appreciate FREE FIRE as Joe investigates as a private citizen what some amoral avaricious antagonists are doing to make millions.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted May 27, 2007

Summary

Joe Pickett, having recently been fired from his job as a Wyoming game warden, is working on his father-in-law's ranch when he receives a call from the governor's office. Governor Rulon—a devious but down-home politico—has a special request, one Joe knows he can't refuse. For weeks, the headlines have been abuzz with the story of Clay McCann, a lawyer who slaughtered four campers in cold blood in a far-off corner of Yellowstone National Park. After the murders, McCann immediately turned himself in at the nearest park ranger station. It seemed like a slam-dunk case for law enforcement—except that the crimes were committed in a thin sliver of land with zero residents and overlapping jurisdiction, the so-called free-fire zone. McCann had taken advantage of a loophole in the law: neither the state of Wyoming nor the federal government can try him for his crime, so he walks out of prison a free man.

Governor Rulon, sensitive to the rising tide of public outrage over the McCann case, wants his own investigation into the murders. The governor will reinstate Joe as a game warden if he'll go to Yellowstone to investigate. Joe, happy to get his badge back, even under these circumstances, agrees. However, it quickly becomes clear to Joe that McCann is deeply involved with some illegal activity taking place in the park—something tremendously lucrative and unusually dangerous. As Joe and his partner Nate Romanowski search in the unlikeliest places to find the key to the murders, they find out that it may be hidden in the rugged terrain of the park itself.