Review: Cold Wind by C. J. Box

I won Cold Wind from LibraryThing and I wish I had realized it was a series when I entered the contest. I simply thought it sounded like a good story that I would enjoy, and I did enjoy it despite not being familiar with the characters.

The murder in this book is unique and sets the tone for the book. Set in Wyoming with its wide open spaces and ridges where the wind blows nearly all the time, a wealthy landowner who happens to be Joe Pickett's latest father-in-law is installing 100 wind turbines. Now I'm in favor of wind power myself so I first thought this was a great idea. The only problem was that someone had murdered the landowner and chained his body to one of the spinning blades. Now that's a new one on me.

Almost immediately Joe's mother-in-law is arrested for the murder of her fifth husband. Joe Pickett is a game warden who has never liked his mother-in-law but it just seems too pat that they would arrest her so quickly. The woman is a conniving gold digger for sure but there is a lot more to the story than first thought.

For those of you who know the series, you'll also catch up with what's happened to Joe's friend Nate and his girlfriend. The cast of characters in this small Wyoming town is more varied than you would think.

As I have said, I'm in favor of wind power, but in the course of the story I learned the other side of the issue and it did make an impression on me. What's wrong with it in this book is the vast amount of money to be made on a renewable energy project and how little oversight is in place. Certainly sets up a lot of potential for corruption.

Now I'm going to read the rest of the series, hopefully from the beginning, because I really like Joe and his wife and daughters. I can understand Nate as well and I look forward to getting to know these people much better. I recommend Cold Wind highly.