Betrayal is the watchword in author C.J. Box’s Dark Sky, the 21st novel in his Joe Pickett series.
The Wyoming game warden finds himself beset on all sides when he’s tasked by the governor to take tech mogul Steven Price on a hunting trip and play politics by pushing the state as a place for Price’s company to locate part of their business. Dire consequences for Joe and for his department are threatened should he not bring home the deal.
Taking inexperienced people who aren’t used to being told what to do into the mountains for a hunting trip is bad enough, but as it turns out, there’s the little matter of Joe and the party being hunted themselves.
Earl Thomas and his sons are out to settle a score with Price and heaven help anyone who gets in their way. When all hell breaks loose and people start dying, Joe escapes with Price. The two of them are faced with knowing they’ve been further betrayed by those they should have been able to trust.
Mother Nature is having her say as well, throwing in an unusually early pattern of cold weather to further dampen their odds of survival.
Alone, unable to communicate with the outside world, lacking food or suitable weapons with which to defend themselves, Joe has to figure out a way to keep himself and Price alive.
Box, once again proving that man is the most dangerous animal, sets the story in a condensed time frame of just a couple of days. He ratchets up the tension and readers will feel like they are right there with Joe, trying to keep warm while foraging for food and weapons and staying one step ahead of determined killers.
And if that isn’t enough for you, there’s the subplot with Nate Romanowski, Joe’s best friend who is a just-this-side-of-legal wild card. Someone has broken not only the falconer’s professional code but his personal one as well leaving the foreboding sense of violent chaos to come.
C.J. Box’s Long Range was my favorite book of 2020, and the twisting, turning nature of Dark Sky’s plot is not only guaranteed to keep readers on the edge of their seats, it’s in the lead for my best book of 2021.
