TREASURE STATE

4 stars out of 5

The sixth in the series featuring private investigator Cassie Dewell puts her in the middle of two very different cases and pulls in a tie with the author's other popular series about Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett. The tie-in is simply this: Cassie hires April Pickett, the daughter of Joe and his wife Marybeth, as an intern at her office in Bozeman, Montana, much to the annoyance of Cassie's hippy dippy blabbermouth mother, Isabel. April isn't seen much, although she and Cassie's son, Ben, do play roles in helping to solve one of the cases.

One of the cases involves a poem left in a restaurant that alludes to an alleged $3.5 million in gold known as Sir Scott's Treasure. It's quite the mystery, both as to who sneaked in and wrote the poem and where the treasure is hidden (if, in fact, it exists at all). Cassie remains uncertain even after she receives a call from the person who claims to be the author - not only can she not tell whether it was a man or woman, the caller challenges Cassie to find not the treasure itself, but the person who hid the treasure and wrote the poem. If she does, the caller says, she'll get a reward of $25,000.

Not long thereafter, Cassie gets a call from an older woman who's been taken to the financial cleaners by a charming con artist; the previous private eye she hired has gone missing, she says, and she still needs someone to try and get her money back. Since she's still got enough money to pay Cassie's retainer, they seal the deal - and Cassie ends up in the old mining town of Anaconda. Right away, she bumps heads with local law enforcement jerks who don't like outsiders (especially female) poking their nose in their business.

But she persists, even if getting to the bottom of things takes her all over Montana - with readers getting an extensive look at the lay of the land. Her investigation also puts her back in touch with a character who should be familiar to readers of previous books and, of course, smack dab in the middle of liars, cheaters and murderers (nope, no details - read the book for yourself). I'll just end with thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for providing me with a pre-release copy to read and review. Another good one!

Treasure State by C.J. Box (Minotaur Books, September 2022); 280 pp.