Endangered (Joe Pickett Series #15)

by C. J. Box Narrated by David Chandler

Overview

New York Times bestselling author C.J. Box returns with a thrilling new novel featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett.

She was gone. Joe Pickett had good reason to dislike Dallas Cates, even if he was a rodeo champion, and now he has even more: Joe's 18-year-old ward, April, has run off with him. And then comes even worse news: The body of a girl has been found in a ditch along the highway—alive but just barely, the victim of blunt-force trauma.

It is April, and the doctors aren't sure if she'll recover. Cates denies having anything to do with it—says she ran away from him, too—and there's evidence that points to another man. But Joe knows in his gut who's responsible. What he doesn't know is the kind of danger he's about to encounter.

Cates is bad enough, but Cates' family is like none Joe has ever met before. Joe's going to find out the truth even if it kills him. But this time it just might.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Audio

05/25/2015
The 15th novel to feature Joe Pickett (after Stone Cold) opens with the Wyoming game warden facing the apparently senseless slaughter of dozens of young sage grouse, a problem he quickly moves to the back burner when he’s told his 18-year-old adopted daughter, April, has been found beaten and left to die on a road near his hometown of Saddlestring. Narrator Chandler’s rendition of the book’s expository sections is precise and professionally delivered but unemotional to a fault, undercutting the vivid and propulsive quality of the author’s prose. However, when it comes to bringing the book’s characters to life, Chandler’s Broadway (Death of Salesman) and TV experience (Law and Order) kick in. The wheelchair-bound Sheriff Reed sounds thoughtful and just, a hard man to rile, while prosecutor Schawk is as tightly coiled as Box describes her. Providing Joe with a deep, leading man’s voice, Chandler takes it through a series of emotional changes, from love for his daughter and fear for her safety to full-out fury when he eventually confronts the book’s collection of truly monstrous villains. A Putnam hardcover. (May)

Publishers Weekly

12/15/2014
In bestseller Box’s solid 15th novel featuring Joe Picket (after 2014’s Stone Cold), the Wyoming game warden faces a crime far too close to home. The sheriff tells him that his foster daughter, April, has been beaten and left for dead in a ditch; Joe’s reaction to the alarming news is an unequivocal “I’m going to kill Dallas Cates,” a dazzling local rodeo champion last seen running off with April. As April lies in a medically induced coma, Joe has to balance his personal crisis with an environmental one: finding the poachers who slaughtered a flock of 21 sage grouse, a species approaching endangered status. Meanwhile, the FBI is tracking the every move of Joe’s old friend Nate Romanowski, who went on the run in Stone Cold. Some of the plot devices stretch credulity, and the dialogue isn’t as crisp as usual, but the story carries the day. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency. (Mar.)

From the Publisher

Praise for Endangered

“All the action and suspense of Box’s long string of high-country adventures. Endangered is one of Joe’s best.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
 
“Is there a crime-fiction family as fully fleshed out as Joe Pickett’s? In singing the praises of Box’s series, we often praise the plotting, pacing, and the down-to-earth hero’s friendship with force-of-nature Nate Romanowski. But Pickett’s supporting cast lends a continuity and grounding to this series that sets it apart from all the lone-wolf stuff out there. A carefully constructed plot building to a breathless, thrilling end.”—Booklist
 
“Series fans will love this thriller. The nonstop action, intermingling plotlines, and the return of familiar characters all mesh into a breathless, roller-coaster ride of sheer suspense and entertainment.”—Library Journal
 
“An edge-of-the-seat thriller. A tightly coiled plot that springs from surprise to surprise.”—South Florida Sun-Sentinel
 
“Once again, Box delivers a winner. Grade: A.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer

More Praise for the C. J. Box and the Joe Pickett novels
 
“One of today’s solid-gold, A-list, must-read writers.”—Lee Child
 
“Picking up a new C. J. Box thriller is like spending quality time with family you love and have missed...It’s a rare thriller series that has characters grow and change. An exciting reading experience for both loyal fans as well as newcomers.”—Associated Press
 
“Box is a master.”—The Denver Post

“Box knows what readers expect and delivers it with a flourish.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer
 
“Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett strides in big boots over the ruggedly gorgeous landscape of C.J. Box's outdoor mysteries.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“Riveting...[A] skillfully crafted page-turner.”—People
 
“Will keep you on the edge of your seat.”—The Philadelphia Enquirer

Library Journal

02/15/2015
In the 15th novel of Box's best-selling series (after Stone Cold) Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett and his family face the fear of losing their 18-year-old adopted daughter, April, who has been badly beaten and abandoned in a ditch. While Marybeth waits at her bedside in a Billings hospital, Joe tracks April's assailant. His chief suspect is rodeo cowboy Dallas Cates, who ran off with April just four months prior. Although another man is arrested, Joe can't ignore the Cates family, led by matriarch Brenda, who, as Joe discovers, will do anything to protect her family, and especially her favorite child. Intertwined in the unfolding drama is the mysterious killing of a flock, or lek, of sage grouse—a species under consideration for listing as endangered; something many Wyomingites, including Governor Rulon, oppose because it would stop or slow energy development in the state. VERDICT Series fans will love this thriller. The nonstop action, intermingling plotlines, and the return of familiar characters all mesh into a breathless, roller-coaster ride of sheer suspense and entertainment. [See Prepub Alert, 9/22/14.]—Patricia Ann Owens, formerly with Illinois Eastern Community Colls., Mt. Carmel

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2015-01-08
Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett's 15th case takes him through some of the darkest days of his checkered career.While Joe's surveying a field in which someone massacred a flock of endangered sage grouse, he gets a call that a young woman's been found in a ditch, badly beaten. Maybe it's not Joe's adopted daughter, April, who ran off with rodeo rider Dallas Cates shortly after her 18th birthday (Stone Cold, 2014). But Joe and his librarian wife, Marybeth, know it is, and of course they're right. Eldon and Brenda Cates insist that Dallas got much too badly banged up at a Houston rodeo to have lifted a hand against April, with whom he'd already split up. Although April, lying in a medically induced coma, is in no position to dispute their story, Joe's ready to kill Dallas himself—until an anonymous tip identifies survivalist Tilden Cudmore as April's abductor. Certainly everything about Cudmore's behavior, especially when he's confronted by the law, indicates that he fits the bill. While Joe is still wondering which of the suspects is really guilty, his old pal Nate Romanowski, the outlaw falconer last seen giving evidence against murder-for-hire kingpin Wolfgang Templeton, is released from prison, made to sign away most of his civil rights into the bargain, and lured into a lethal ambush and left for dead. Who's responsible for his shooting? What have they done with his lover and business partner, Liv Brannan? And what hope does Joe have of solving such a range of felonies, especially those that hit closest to home? All the action and suspense of Box's long string of high-country adventures, with a solution that's considerably tighter and more satisfying than most of them. One of Joe's best.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171310486
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	03/10/2015
Series:	Joe Pickett Series
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	393,427

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Excerpted from "Endangered"
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Copyright © 2016 C. J. Box.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
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