Free Fire (A Joe Pickett Novel)

This Joe Pickett tale is set entirely in Yellowstone Park, where previously unemployed Joe is hired by the governor of Wyoming on a secret mission of sorts. A Lone Ranger mission…all by himself, though he enlists the help of his ultra cool badass Buddy Nate Romanowski. (Very cool character! He, and Joe’s immediate family, make the series, imo). This book has very little time spent on Joe’s family, which I found a tad disappointing.Joe is there in Yellowstone to see what’s going on. The gov’ner received an appealing letter from a citizen who says something huge and potentially lucrative is showing up in Yellowstone, come see! The gov sends Joe, “But I will deny it if you say so!” It’s a rather dangerous mission for Joe, and Nate, and as usual it’s hard to know who the good guys are, and who is a bad guy. I admit to losing track of all the characters in this tale. I was mostly listening to it when I drove, and a couple of times I went a day or 2 without reading or listening, and forgot some of the characters. I love Kindle’s search feature for refreshing my memory, but there was one character I never did remember how he fit in. It wasn’t a huge deal in the end, I still got the gist of the story.It was a good story, made better by the note at the end that told me the issues addressed in this story were, in fact, true issues in the state of Wyoming at the time the book was written. That tidbit was encouraging and gave me even more respect for the author.So I’m ready for the next book in the series. Joe Pickett left a few things hanging, and I need to see how he takes care of it all.

First it's who really did it, then it's why did they do it, and finally how are they going to get caught. This book keeps you guessing all the way through but it also leaves a few questions to be answered.

Joe Pickett the game warden savant uncovers one clue after another. At the same time the author illuminates the wonders of Yellowstone National Park. C.J. Box's writing is clean and builds tension as the narrative progresses. Joe Pickett and his extended family are a heartwarming ensemble. Reading their adventures is a pleasure.

The quote in the title comes from a Fed near the end of this novel. It is indicative of C.J. Box's Joe Pickett series for it is not just the Feds Pickett cannot trust. Throughout the series, Pickett has to fight the bureaucracies of local, state and federal agencies in order to get the bad guy. He also gets caught between tree huggers vs greedy developers, animal rights activists vs poachers and law vs justice.In the Joe Pickett books, there are no good guys other than Pickett, his family and friend Nate. Oh, there is the occasional breakthrough like the female park ranger character in "Free Fire" but, on the whole, most every other character in the series is ruthless, ambitious, violent or incompetent. Everyone seems to have an agenda from the unrealistic and dogmatic environmentalist to the unethical and money-grubbing businessman. Nobody escapes C.J. Box's skewering in these books."Free Fire" is a fine example of how frustrating life is for Joe Pickett and how he has to deal with the corruption all around him in his pursuit of justice. In "Free Fire", Pickett is engaged by the new governor to investigate a murder in Yellowstone National Park. Pickett gets his old job back as Wyoming game warden but he is conducting his investigation on the sly--the governor has plausible deniability and offers little in the way of support for the assignment he has given Pickett. The fly in the ointment of the murder itself is that there is no legal way to try the murderer because it took place in the "Zone of Death" within Yellowstone--an area of the country where no one resides to act as peers for a jury in a criminal trial. To further complicate matters, the park officials would just as soon forget the whole incident to avoid further bad publicity that might blemish their careers.Pickett's insecurity and self doubt gets on your nerves after a while. You just want to slap him and tell him to stop beating himself up over every incident in his life and get on with it. But we all have self doubt at times and can identify with Pickett's dilemmas and stress. You also get frustrated when Pickett runs into the power structures that offer no support. In the end, the story does reach resolution but only to the extent that the bad guys face some forms of justice. In the end, Pickett still has to deal with the corruption and deceit of government officials. Makes for a good series of books.I've been reading the whole Joe Pickett series in order and it keeps getting better. The books aren't always perfect (I've found a few editing mistakes and errors of fact along the way) but they are enjoyable. And frustrating.

Joe Pickett has been the foreman at his father-in-law’s ranch until the governor called Joe and asked him to be a Game Warden on a special project at Yellowstone Park. An attorney killed four people in an area of the park under no state jurisdiction and since it’s a federal park there was no way to for him to go to trial under a jury of his peers. A murderer was released due to a bizarre technicality that as an attorney he obviously knew in advance. The Governor said that he chose Joe because he was honest and like him managed to get things done.C. J. Box has an adventurous imagination and writes with wit and keeps Joe and friend Nate on their toes and going non-stop page after exciting page. This was an especially memorable story set in America’s wildest National Parks, and you’ll want to go ahead and tee up that next Joe Pickett adventure called BLOOD TRAIL. I’ll give this book a solid five stars for great writing, action and a wow factor you don’t get in every you read.

Husband loved this series.