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.

THE BITTERROOTS

4 stars out of 5

After being mentored by Cody Hoyt, a character from another series by this author, Cassie Dewell is off on her own as a private investigator. She's got a son, Ben, and lives with him and her hippie mother in Bozeman, Montana. She's also dragging around a ton of emotional baggage from her past - baggage that continues to bog her down in this, the fourth installment.

It comes in the form of a big black semi, which idles for a few minutes in front of her house - bringing a stark reminder of a now-dead serial killer and fears that some way, some how, someone from that disturbing part of her life has come back to haunt her. Meantime, an attorney friend to whom she owes a favor calls in a big one: she's defending an accused child rapist and wants Cassie to find out how strong the prosecution's case is so she can plan her trial strategy (or beg the client, who denies any wrongdoing, to take a plea deal). Cassie's certain he's guilty, but her friend convinces her that she's really not trying to get him off (and besides, there's that favor thing) so Cassie agrees and heads out to remote Lochsa County. 

There, she bumps heads with a family from hell - descendants of a branch of religious cult Hutterites who, quite literally, own everything and everybody in the county. Her friend's client, it seems, is their first-born son, who essentially has been disowned because he left home to make his home and fortune elsewhere. Besides that, the young girl he's accused of raping is his niece - the daughter of a brother who stuck with the family program. It goes without saying, then, that Cassie isn't welcome in them there parts.

Threats to her life notwithstanding, Cassie ferrets out enough evidence to make her visit worthwhile; the trick now is getting back out alive. While she's trying to deal with some of the nastiest characters I've read about in a while, her son is having issues of his own, including teenage infatuation, a grandmother who's firmly rooted in the 1960s and yes, that big black semi.

It all makes for a very readable, fast-paced book with a couple of surprises thrown in at the end. Enjoyed it!

The Bitterroots by C.J. Box (Minotaur Books, August 2019); 320 pp.

BADLANDS

4 stars out of 5

Now without her former partner, Montana police investigator Cody Hoyt - star of two previous books (The Highway and Back of Beyond - detective Cassie Dewell ventures to North Carolina to help put away a man thought to be serial killer Ronald Pergram (a.k.a. Lizard King). Thanks in part to her efforts, he's finally behind bars. So, she heads back to The Treasure State and almost immediately leaves for a new position as chief investigator in Grimstad, North Dakota - a backwoods town that's growing by leaps and bounds as a result of a booming oil industry.

Almost before she attends her first department meeting, a 12-year-old developmentally challenged boy named Kyle witnesses a car accident in  which the driver was killed. Then he sees a "package" that apparently was thrown from the car, picks it up and discovers a load of cash and packets of white powder - and a possible turn of good fortune that will allow him to provide a better life for himself and his mother.

Meanwhile, Cassie learns she was brought in to replace a chief investigator who was demoted by Sheriff Kirkbride, the kindly but well-seasoned man who hired her (aha - can we smell the resentment brewing)? In addition to her regular duties, her boss wants her to keep her ear to the ground for possible irregularities within the department. All that gets put on the back burner, though, when mutilated bodies turn up that may be related to rival drug gangs - and more specifically, to that mysterious package Kyle found. As the investigation gathers momentum, Cassie gets a new partner, Ian Davis; he's a former undercover cop who infiltrated the burgeoning drug underworld but had to be pulled from the field when his identity was jeopardized.

There's plenty of action in this one - some of it on the gruesome side - and much of it takes place when the temperatures drop to double-digits below zero (I like winter temperatures better than summer, but that's way too cold even for me). There aren't a lot of surprises as to who the bad guys are, but how, why and who's gonna get bumped off next kept me interested and unhappy when I had to put the book down (but close to 100 fewer pages than is usual for this author meant I didn't need to do that very often). By the end, most of the loose ends are tidied up, although a few stragglers remain that are sure to be continued in the next installment.

Also noticeable is what may be yet another example of the product placement trend I've seen in recent books by other authors; the brand name of a well-known outdoor clothing manufacturer was mentioned three times within the first half of the book. To top things off, I got a wee chuckle over two of the central characters named Willie and Winkie - methinks somebody's got a sense of humor. 

Badlands by C.J. Box (Minotaur Books, July 2015); 288 pp.