Excellent story. Joe is now able to go home, but he first wants to investigate the report from some hunters who said they shot an elk that once they located their kill it had already been butchered. This is also the area where a marathon runner was last known to have been running prior to her disappearance 4 yrs earlier. Joe happens upon a man fishing in a stream who is not dressed like a normal sportsman would be attired. Joe asks to see the man's fishing license. He says it must be at his campsite where his brother is located. Thus begins a harrowing fight for survival for Joe when both his horses and himself are hit with arrows. He comes upon a cabin and in taken in and nursed back to health by a woman who Joe believes is the missing runner. Joe is able to walk out of the mountains to safety and taken to a hospital where he relays his misadventure. A large group of law enforcement look for these brothers but can find no trace of them, the cabin (which was burned) or the horses he lost. They do not , then, believe his story. Joe is healing at home when the mother and father of the missing runner come to him and ask him to look for her. Relucantly, he and his friend, Nate, set off. Nate knows that the only was to end the hunt is by killing these two men. Joe and Nate locate the brothers, have a stand off, sit and chat about their next steps, Each side steps away, but Joe cannot leave without taking these men into custody. Nate has walked off and the brothers return to the site, along with Joe. Joe shoots one of the brothers and then Nate shoots both of brothers again. It turns out that the brothers had unloaded their weapons when they stepped away. Joe and Nate load the dead bodies on horses and the missing runner rides out with them. She ends up riding off with Nate to be introduced to the underground, where she will find others like herself who want to be left alone. Joe rides to his starting place where a calvary of law enforcement have converged to get the brothers and to take the runner home. ( )

(2010) Another very good Joe Pickett saga as he tracks down a missing Olympic track star that decided to go missing on purpose to escape her abusive father. First third of the book was hard to put down; page-turner.KIRKUS REVIEWWyoming game warden Joe Pickett's last patrol before he returns to his family and his old posting in Twelve Sleep County leads to another round of tense high-country adventure.Something is wrong in the Sierra Madre. Two years after Olympic track hopeful Diane Shober disappeared while she was training in the high altitude, locals like fisherman Dave Farkus still whisper about the place. Now someone has butchered an elk¥maybe a Wendigo, a spirit who's supposed to stick to the Canadian side of the border. When he goes to investigate, Joe runs afoul of the Grim brothers. Ticketed for fishing without a license, Caleb Grimmengruber warns Joe to drop the matter and ride off. But Joe's insistence on doing his job has bloody consequences that leave Joe, ?outgunned, outnumbered, and outmanned,? limping back to civilization. Discredited once again by law officers who improbably dismiss his story when they can't find the Grims, Joe resigns himself to riding out his enforced leave in his home. But forces conspire to send him and his outlaw buddy Nate Romanowski back into the Sierra Madre to look for Diane, and inevitably for the twins who bested him the first time around, this time to complete a mission that Nate calls ?the worst thing we've ever done.?After an uncharacteristically weak outing (Below Zero, 2009), it's great to see the usual Box strengthsÂ¥exhilarating landscapes, high adventure, thrilling suspense, surprising moral quandariesÂ¥done to a turn.Pub Date: April 6th, 2010ISBN: 978-0-399-15645-8Page count: 368ppPublisher: PutnamReview Posted Online: Dec. 22nd, 2010Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15th, 2010

Nowhere to Run is a suspenseful book from beginning to end. Somehow Joe Pickett, a game warden, finds himself in deadly situations. He is steadfast in his pursuit of people who do not have game licenses to fish or hunt in the mountains of Wyoming. Four stars were awarded to this book. ( )

It's Joe Pickett's last week as a temporary game warden in the mountain town of Baggs, Wyoming, but his conscience won't let him leave without checking out the strange reports coming from the wilderness: camps looted, tents slashed, elk butchered. What awaits him is like something out of an old campfire tale, except this story is all too real-and all too deadly.

The Joe Pickett novels are good for a break from massive fantasy series for me. They are short, easy to read & the mysteries are rarely very demanding.
There is usually some issue as a background and it does make my eyes roll over peculiar American beliefs at times. But that's what reading gives you - a perspective on someone else's opinion - even if you think it's bananas.
This was one of the better novels although as usual the mystery is quite slight. ( )