(2014) Joe is tasked by the governor to investigate a possible assassin ring run by a billionaire. As he gets into the area, he finds that another game warden, the sheriff and local judge are also involved. When he begins to ask too many questions he discovers that they have hidden a bomb under his truck to take him out later. Removing it, he keeps it for later when he confronts henchmen of the group and when they set off the bomb thinking it is still in Joe's truck, it instead takes them out instead. The billionaire escapes with his new squeeze, Missy, Joe's mother-in-law, obviously setting up a subsequent encounter. Nate, although heavily implicated in the ring, has managed to come out of it with at least possibility of turning state's evidence on the ring. The loner in Sheridan's dorm is killed on the roof of the dorm because the swat team thinks he is going to use the pellet gun to kill students, which he was only using to hunt pigeons, something he had always done as a teen. April does run off with the possible rapist at the end of the story, so that also will come up in subsequent books.KIRKUS REVIEWJoe Pickett's fantastical 14th pits him against a nest of assassins that just happens to include his old pal Nate Romanowski.Since Wyoming governor Spencer Rulon got Joe rehired at his old seniority level and with a new raise after he quit the Game and Fish Department after his last run-in with corrupt authority figures (Breaking Point, 2013), Joe's seriously in his debt. So when Rulon sends him undercover to remote Medicine Wheel County to check out rumors that billionaire hedge fund founder Wolfgang Templeton, who's retired to Sand Creek Ranch, is heading a murder-for-hire ring whose soldiers seem to include Nate, Joe agrees to go despite his reluctance to leave his family yet again. Nor is he crazy about the cover story that he's just bringing Medicine Wheel County Game and Fish Warden Jim Latta some pheasants to release into the wild and helping Latta get Templeton's permission to establish several public walk-in areas in Sand Creek. No sooner has Joe met Templeton and peddled his cover story than he realizes that Sheriff R. C. Mead, Judge Ethan Bartholomew and Latta himself are all protecting poachers like Bill Critchfield and Gene Smith. As the killers continue to take out richly deserving targetsĄ?Go do some good? is their mantraĂ‚ÂĄJoe effortlessly finds ways to get under Latta's and Templeton's skin and then struggles to reap the whirlwind. Meanwhile, Joe's ward, April, takes up with a possible rapist, and his older daughter Sheridan wonders if a creepy loner in her dorm is about to shoot up her campus.Suspenseful yet routine, with oversized bogeymen who seem more menacing than they really are, ethical dilemmas that dissolve under pressure and an ending that tests your tolerance for coincidence. Below average for this splendid yet checkered series.Pub Date: March 11th, 2014ISBN: 978-0-399-16076-9Page count: 384ppPublisher: PutnamReview Posted Online: Feb. 20th, 2014Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1st, 2014

The Pickett novels are easy reads - you usually know who the "bad guy" is but it's just how Joe will catch them that the plot centres around. This is the same with the twist of Nate being on the "other side" even more than usual. I did choke slightly at the "I'm not a murderer" comment at the end - Um, I think you are............
But much like the Reacher books Nate is a "fantasy" character whom you are not supposed to judge as if he was a normal mortal. ( )

I have seen this author's books many times but never read one, thinking how can a book about a game warden in Wyoming be interesting? A friend gave me a copy of this book, so I read it.
Starting with the 14th book in a series is never ideal, but the author does a fine job f supplying just enough detail to get the reader caught up, regarding the main characters.
The story especially the outcome is very predictable, but the book is written well enough to make the finishing of the book worth it.
It of course leaves something hanging at the end to propel the reader to read the next book in the series.

( )

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader as part of a Quick Takes Catch-up post, emphasizing pithiness, not thoroughness.
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This was a good way to bring Nate back into the series if nothing else. The story was okay, and seeing Joe balance out working for his new administrator and Gov. Rulon was fun. I was less-than-excited about Sheridan’s storyline, it was good to see her in action, and any way that Box can do that is okay with me—I just wanted more, I guess.

Bringing Missy in (and Box might as well have saved time with that reveal, anyone could’ve seen that coming 5 miles away) didn’t do much for me at all. The series really needs less of her, and I don’t get Box’s need to use her as much as he does.

A decent installment in this series—nothing special, but nothing bad, either. ( )

Joe Pickett, game warden, is asked by the Gov. of Wyoming, Gov. Rolon, to investigate what is happening in Medicine Wheel, Wyoming.

This is a poor town in a beautiful area where a wealthy man, Wolfgang Templeton has built an estate, helped out locals and set up a little fiefdom in the town. He is a suspect in a murder for hire operation.

Joe is to work with Special Agent Chuck Croom of the FBI and Joe's cover will be to work with the local game warden on a program to restock game.

Joe is supposed to observe and report back not to take action. Of course, Joe does, he stirs up the pot and sees what comes up.

The writing is crisp and there are a number of surprises.

There is an interesting subplot where Joe's daughter is an RA in a dorm on her campus and suspects one of the students might be out to take action against other students. She asks Joe for help on what she might do to foil a possible attack on the students. ( )