Blood Trail

by C.J. Box

It’s elk season in the Rockies, but this year a different kind of hunter stalks a different kind of prey. When the call comes in on the radio, Joe Pickett can hardly believe his ears. Game wardens have found a hunter dead at a camp in the mountains—strung up, gutted and flayed as if he were the elk he’d been stalking. A spent cartridge and a poker chip lie next to his body. Ripples of horror spread through the community, and with a possibly psychotic killer on the loose, Governor Rulon is forced to end the hunting season early for the first time in state history. Are the murders the work of a deranged anti-hunting activist or a lone psychopath with a personal vendetta? Joe Pickett, as always, is the governor’s go-to man, and he’s put on the case—tracking the hunter even as more bodies, and more poker chips turn up.
Bold, fast-paced and with a controversial hook—hunters and anti-hunting activists—Blood Trail is proof that CJ Box keeps getting better and better.

C. J. Box is the author of five Joe Pickett novels, and has won the Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe, and Barry awards. He has also been an Edgar Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. A Wyoming native, Box serves on the board of directors for Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo.