Book Review: Blood Trail by C J Box

Blood Trail, number 8 in the ' Joe Pickett' series and yes I may as well say right out at the front - EVERY BIT AS GOOD AS 1 THROUGH 7!

Joe is back in Saddlestring with Marybeth and the girls, Nate is in Federal prison after he and Joe were double crossed by Portenson when investigating the 'perfect murder' in Yellowstone Park , the FBI agent who hates Wyoming and anything to do with the morons who live in such a godforsaken backwood, animal infested part of the country!

Joe and Marybeth have now bought a 'house' in town and Joe is filling in across the state for absent or sick wardens.  Nosey neighbours are making Joe wish that he was back in the isolation of their state owned house and hunting season is in full swing....  and it's not just the game that's being hunted.

A new hunter has arrived in the state, not hunting the wildlife but the hunters themselves.  Two have already been killed elsewhere when the third is killed in the hills outside Saddlestring and they are not just being killed, they are being strung up like an Elk sliced open and left on display....

The Governor again calls on Joe to investigate and Director Pope, Joe's boss who hates Joe as much as he (Joe) hates him, and not forgetting he was the guy who sacked 'our' Joe, want's to be in the field as part of the investigation and seems to be backing Joe up!  You just know that ultimately this means that there is going to be more trouble in store for him.

Joe also finds Stella Ennis is back, this time working for the Governor, Joe nearly fell for her and this damaged his marriage for a while, what will happen when Marybeth finds out that Stella is back?

Joe asks the Governor to intervene with the FBI and have Nate released, but he refuses and brings in a specialist tracker, who also ends up getting killed while out with Joe....... as does ......  (no spoilers - but sadness is felt)

Joe knows that there is something more to the killings but can't figure it out, as usual.  A high profile Anti Hunt protester and his Indian wife arrive in Saddlestring and this complicates the enquiry as he hails the 'hunter' as a hero.

Vern Dunnegan, Joes predecessor and mentor and the guy that Joe had to arrest all those years ago when he was involved in an incident that got Marybeth shot and nearly killed and resulted in them losing an unborn child, is back in the frame somehow and Joe has to confront him in prison....

Once again you think you know what the outcome is going to be but Box leaves it until about the last few pages to confuse and reveal the real killer it was a surprise, until you realise that the answer was also staring you, as it was Joe, right in the face.

Box, just continues to provide an enthralling read.  In between the business of Game Warden and Murder we get the 'mundane' family life;  growing daughters with the angst that that brings, nosey and irritable neighbours  and of course the continuing saga of Missy Vankueron-Longbrake, Joe's mother-in-law.  The narrative flows seamlessly from the high octane of danger and death to discussions  on homework, school and cleaning the roof gutters and fixing tiles and fences to keep the neighbours happy, how many authors do you read, that are this good?

Book 1 - Open Season                  √

Book 2 – Savage Run                   √
Book 3 – Winterkill                      √
Book 4 – Trophy Hunt                  √
Book 5 – Out of Range                 √
Book 6 – In Plain Sight                √
Book 7 – Free Fire                       √

Book 8 – Blood Trail                    √ 

Book 9 – Below Zero

Book 10 – Nowhere to Run

Book 11 – Cold Wind

Book 12 – Force of Nature

Editing for Kindle /iPad: 4 out of 5*
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5 
Page length on kindle /iPad: 301 for the book (and 1st chapter of next book taking it to 314)
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

* found another word with a hyphen that shouldn't have been there Mr Box 

You can purchase Free Fire At Amazon UK here or at Amazon US here 

CJ Box can be found here

Book Review: Free Fire by CJ Box

I think by now you will have realised that I am a huge fan of 'Joe Pickett' and indeed the Pickett family and of course Nate Romanowski as written about by Mr Box and I really haven't a bad thing to say about any of his books as I work my way through them, this is number 7 in the reading order of 12  and still I have nothing bad to say, even although for the first time in all seven books I found two errors, one of which was a stupid hyphen in dan-gerous WTF!

Setting aside that, and I have marked it down in my editing for Kindle (Harsh but what can one do), what about the story.Well, you may recall that by the end of, 'In Plain Site'  Joe has been sacked from his job as Game Warden and in Free Fire we find him working as Ranch Foreman on his Father-in-laws ranch while Marybeth's accounting business is expanding.

Out of the blue the new Governor turns up in Saddlestring and offers Joe his job back but with strings attached.

A multiple murder has taken place in Yellowstone Park and it looks as if, for the first time ever, anywhere in the world, 'It is the perfect murder'. They know who did it, he even handed himself in immediately after killing 4 people, but they had to let him go!

Yellowstone Park might be in the state, in fact it is in three US states, and therefore comes under Federal law because of its status as a National Park.  The Governor thinks the Federal authorities are not doing enough and tells Joe that he wants him to visit the park and find out what the hell's going on, even although he will have no jurisdiction.

After discussing it with Marybeth Joe takes the job, knew he would, and is reinstated as a Game Warden with no loss of service.  Director Pope who we don't miss from the story still manages to stick the knife in, by making sure Joe doe's not get his original badge number back which would show him as a senior Warden, instead sending him Badge no 54, reserved for rookies!

Joe sets off for Yellowstone in a brand new truck, you just know what's gonna happen to that, just as Joe can't hit a barn door if he was standing in front of it with his gun, you just know what's gonna happen to that truck (oh, it's deliciously funny) followed by Nate Romanowski as back up.

Soon he is in the thick of it, more murders are committed, and just to mix things up we learn of events from Joe's past, about his brother, how he died and where he is buried.  His parents break up and why Joe has hated his father and always avoids discussing him and ghosts from that past become real in Yellowstone all lead to complications in the investigation.

A thrilling climax to the book ends with the FBI and an old adversary from that organisation double crossing Joe and Nate but this after Joe in his usual stumbling way, solves the crime.

This really was /is as good as the previous six books and Mr Box just keeps getting better and better.  The Perfect Murder scenario was a master stroke in finding it and building a story around it and it worked well, I wonder if that little loophole has now been closed in reality (hope so, wont be in a hurry to visit that corner of Yellowstone Park until I know it has been!)?

Book 1 - Open Season                  √

Book 2 – Savage Run                   √
Book 3 – Winterkill                      √
Book 4 – Trophy Hunt                  √
Book 5 – Out of Range                 √
Book 6 – In Plain Sight                √
Book 7 – Free Fire                       √

Book 8 – Blood Trail

Book 9 – Below Zero

Book 10 – Nowhere to Run

Book 11 – Cold Wind

Book 12 – Force of Nature

Editing for Kindle /iPad: 4 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5 
Page length on kindle /iPad: 380
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

You can purchase Free Fire At Amazon UK here or at Amazon US here 

CJ Box can be found here

The 0.99pence /0.99cent Kindle Book

I started on twitter about 3 years ago and didn't do too much with it until this year when I started to really find and engage with people on it.  Unlike huge celebrities and some others, I do not (and this is not a blog looking for followers) have a vast following on twitter, but what I do have is around 130 odd followers with a fair number of those people with whom I interact with.

Another quirk in my followers, that's not to say that they are quirky, well some are and you know who you are, is that the vast majority of them are authors and another quirky fact is that 99% of those are Indie authors.

Now, if you do not know what an Indie author is, it is someone who for whatever reason, sometimes by choice, sometimes not, who self publishes their own works, taking on the role of writer, agent, publicist, marketing guru and accountant, and while in many cases, holding down a paid day job or are home makers.

I recently noticed a thread on twitter between a couple of authors with one commenting that,    "$.99 for an ebook increasingly a signal to readers that a book from a writer new to them is dreck. They move on."

Now, I am assuming that most people reading this will know the basics of Twitter and you will know that sometimes you are a bit (if I could meet the person that coined this phrase I'd smack them in the teeth) of a peeping Tom, listening in on a conversation between others, but that is the nature of the medium.  So, anyway, essentially what was going on here was that one author chappie was saying to the other that the $.99 book on E readers was doing him and others like him a disservice as people like me would see a book retailing so cheaply, think it was pretty rubbish and not entertain the thought of reading it!

Well, if you have read my previous blogs, you will know I am not scared to jump in where I am not wanted...so I entered the conversation with the comment that if that was in fact the case I would not have read either of their books and I would not be interacting with them, giving them a piece of my mind, but this got me to thinking about this some more and here it is!

Since I got my Kindle of my wife for Christmas 2010 I have downloaded 42 books that averages out at 4.2 books per month and I have also still bought about 6 books in written form so that takes my monthly average to 4.8 books per month.  Now I do have to confess that while I have a voracious appetite for reading and I can be reading 2 or three books simultaneously there are periods where I will go weeks without picking up Kindle or book, so of the 48 books I have so far purchased this year I have still to read 7 of them but I think that's still pretty good going.

Now here is a snapshot of the books I have bought via my Kindle at a reduced price:

"Cambridge Blue" by Alison Bruce cost £1.00                 "Open Season" by CJ Box cost £1.00

            














"The Bitch Proof Suit" by De Ann Black          "In Her Name: Empire" by Michael R Hicks cost Free
 cost  £0.86

The AI War by Stephen Ames Berry cost £2.14

Now, these are only a few of the 'cheap' books that I have purchased, and prior to buying them I had never heard of any of the authors, not one.  I now proudly own all 7 of Michael R Hicks published offerings and keep giving him a hard time on Twitter to write more.  CJ Box, the same, never heard of the guy but now own 8 of his novels.  De Ann Black, romantic comedy, loved it and bought her next book "The Strife of Reilly".  Allison Bruce, never heard of her, wonderful crime drama set In Cambridge England, scoping out more of her books. Stephen Ames Berry, never heard of him and full on SyFy not usually my cup of tea but a great entertaining read. Samples of other books downloaded and entered on my Amazon wish list to come back to later.

So my point is, that if I hadn't bought these 'cheap' books I would never have gone on to read even more of the wonderful books that the author has published.  And before you think that all I do is purchase the cheaper end of the market, that is also not the case.  Julian Stockwin, Harry Sidebottom, Conn Iggulden, Lee Child, Alexander McCall-Smith and of course CJ Box, Mark Beaumont, all fit into this category, all non Indie Authors, whose books are rarely discounted, have all been bought through Kindle or on hardback in the last year, so there is no discrimination there.

The wonderful thing about the Kindle is that it also allows us, the reader, to download a sample of authors book with a few chapters in it, read it, see if we like it and then purchase or discard it.  That's how I found most of my Indie Authors.  But the bottom line is, if I liked it, I bought it, I didn't worry too much about the price.

I suppose the bottom line and the difference between my Indie Authors and my Established Authors is: The established ones have the publishing houses behind them and normally have a following that is willing to pay the price, and sometimes, since discovering Indie Authors I do find myself muttering about the cost of the Established Authors when I am reading a book with a flowing and compelling storyline every bit as good as 'Publishing House' authors.

So, while I can understand the frustration that Indie Authors must have at the pricing disparity, and I have no answer for it here, I have to say that you are not doing your readers a disservice by producing the truly wonderful books that you do.  I am sorry that you are not receiving the accolades or reaping the financial gains of others, but I for one am delighted with all my purchases of my £0.99 pence books which have lead to many enjoyable reading hours with the addedd benefit of making many wonderful Twitter friends in those authors I am reading, and even some I haven't quite got round to yet. Mr Halstead.