MONSTERS IN ALL FORMS: C.J. BOX'S THREE-INCH TEETH

Joe Pickett is a series hero you can't help but root for. C.J. Box's Wyoming game warden can be counted on to rush in to do the right thing, no matter the odds or state vehicles that get totalled. In Three-Inch Teeth the author places him against two adversaries, one from the wilderness and one just out of prison.

The book opens with the brutal grizzly attack on a ranch hand. Box utilizes all of the senses to deliver a horrifying victim's P.O.V. The cowboy was ating, Joe's oldest, Sheridan, making his job a personal tangle, involving his family and the man's father. This sets up Jaws in the mountains as Pickett teams up with Wyoming's Predatory attack team to hunt the bear down.

However, a worse predator has reentered society. Dallas Cates, Joe's nemesis from Endangered has finished his prison strength and is out for payback. Using the bear attack, he hooks up with a gadget maker he protected inside and gets him to make a steel jaw contraption that replicates an animal assault. Cates, his meth addict girlfriend, and the gadget man travel around the state on a bloody spree involving many of the series regulars, honing in on Joe and his friend, Nate,

Writing for Joe Pickett in twenty-three previous books, Box is at a confident ease with his hero. He knows just what to express about him to the reader, whether new to the series or if they've read all the books. When his wife, Marybeth, informs him about a family member, he captures a healthy marriage has survived several years of challenges, kids, and criminals. He has no fear in establishing his flaws more than his strengths. Many of the humorous parts are at his expense. That said, when the story hits the tense and suspenseful standoff, we don't doubt his capability.

Three-Inch Teeth works as a fine example as an outdoor thriller. It captures the landscape and personalities that populate it, moves at a cinematic pace, and does some things you don't expect. Most of all, we follow it all through a man he connect to and care about.