Good news for Joe Pickett fans.
Best-selling author and Wyoming native C.J. Box has announced his latest Joe Pickett novel, the 24th in the series, will be available in early 2024.
Box discussed the new novel titled “Three-Inch Teeth” on the Cowboy State Daily podcast “The Roundup.”
He told podcast host Wendy Corr that the star of his new novel, besides the Wyoming game warden, is a marauding and deadly grizzly bear that is apparently hard to track down.
“It's about a rogue grizzly going after people all over the state of Wyoming,” Box said. “And Joe Pickett is recruited to be on part of the predator attack team.”
“They’re trying to figure out what motivates it, how it can move so fast and what’s really going on,” he said.
Based On Reality
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department really does have a predator attack team and if there was a roguish bear on the loose, that team would likely be assembled.
Box said he spent a lot of time with Dan Thompson, large carnivore expert with Game and Fish, to accurately portray bear activity.
“He (Dan) really helped me out with behavior patterns. He read early drafts of it and said, ‘I don't think a bear would do that, but it might do this,’” Box said.
“It’s so interesting that there is no way to predict bear behavior at all,” he continued. “And every time they think they've got it totally figured out a bear does something that no one thought was possible.”
Box said some of the stories Thompson shared with him are “very creepy and eerie.”
“I’m fascinated by them,” Box said.
Not Just A Bad Bear
It wouldn’t be a C.J. Box book if there weren’t roguish humans as well.
In this novel, it’s Dallas Cates, a recently-released prisoner who wants revenge toward the people who locked him up.
His vengeance, according to promotional material on Box’s website, is directed toward six people and their names are tattooed on Cates’ skin.
“Using the grizzly attacks as cover, Cates sets out to methodically check off his list,” the site teases. “The problem is, both Nate Romanowski and Joe Pickett are on it.”
For the uninitiated, Nate Romanowski is Pickett’s badass buddy who is always in trouble for something and is a popular character in the series. Box said he gets a lot of fan mail about him.
“I do, and it seems like lots of women like him,” Box said, mentioning his wife is a fan.
The book is set to be released in February 2024, and the entire podcast be watched here.
Jimmy Orr can be reached at jimmy@cowboystatedaily.com.
