Free Fire - C.J. Box

Free Fire is the seventh book in C.J. Box's Joe Pickett series. In this installment, Joe is working on his father-in-law's ranch when the Governor of Wyoming offers him a job back with the game wardens. Only this time he won't have an assigned district to cover, he'll be going to Yellowstone National Park to investigate a multiple homicide case that was committed in the "Zone of Death." A lawyer figured out that a small strip of land overlapped jurisdictions, the free fire zone, and therefore no one was able to prosecute him and he escaped Scot free on four murders. Joe heads out to find out what actually happened in Yellowstone and all hell begins to...erupt.

As with Blood Trail, I listened to this book on audio and it was also read by David Chandler. Chandler does a decent job and I enjoy listening to his reading for male roles, but the female voices are a little jarring.

Free Fire was an enjoyable book; I appreciate Box's choice of setting in this novel. I learned quite a bit about Yellowstone National Park. And a non-urban setting is always a nice change. A few of the murders in this book were rather unique as well; gruesome, but unique.

The characters in this series don't really overwhelm me. I'm not sure exactly why that is. Nate is a decent character, but maybe a part of me thinks the rebel sidekick has been done enough and I would like to see something more unique - like Box's settings. There are many times that Joe strikes me as indifferent more than anything. And that may very well be attributed to the audio reader. I will have to read one of the books myself and see if that changes my outlook on his character.

I will read more books in this series. I'm interested to read the beginning; I very much dislike this reading out of order, but I haven't been able to get the early books on audio. I haven't listened to one that has completely wow'ed me, but I do enjoy the series enough to read some more of it.