Stone Cold - CJ BoxWe take a trip to the remote Black Hills of Wyoming for Stone Cold, the new Joe Pickett novel by CJ Box.

Officially still a game warden, Pickett has been asked by the state governor to find out what’s going on in a mysterious ranch, the subject of intense, but sinister speculation. Who are the women there?  What comes in and out on the private airstrip? And could it be true that the owner has made his money through killing?

C. J. Box is the Top Ten New York Times bestselling author of eighteen novels, with Stone Cold coming fourteenth in the popular Joe Pickett series. Box picked up the Edgar Alan Poe Award for Best Novel (for Blue Heaven, 2009) as well as the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award and the Barry Award.  His work has been translated into 27 languages, while the novels Open Season, Blue Heaven and Nowhere To Run have been optioned for film. Over 3 million copies of his novels have been sold in the U.S. alone.

Box has Wyoming in his blood and he writes about it with real passion.  He’s a keen outdoorsman, hunter, skier and fisherman. He’s also been a tour guide, ranch hand, journalist, newspaper editor and owner of an award-winning international destination marketing company.  His novels, which he describes as modern-day Westerns, draw on his life experiences and celebrate the vast, unspoilt open spaces he loves so much. His protagonist, Joe Pickett, is unusual in that he’s a happy man: no baggage, no dark past, just a happy home, a job he loves and a desire to do the right thing.

And the C.J.? In case you were wondering, it stands for Charles – or rather Chuck – James.