Cold Wind

Cold Wind
by C. J. Box
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2011. 388 pgs. Mystery.

What if you were called upon to defend your mother-in-law against murder charges and you hated your mother-in-law? This is the dilemma facing Joe Pickett, Wyoming game warden, husband, father, and fed-up son-in-law. Joe, in fact, discovered the body of Missy's fifth husband, lashed to the vane of a windmill on his own newly-constructed wind farm. Many signs point to Missy's involvement--the murder weapon was found in her Hummer, and she had allegedly made many phone calls to husband number four trying to talk him into killing number five. But how could the small-boned Missy have lugged Earl up the windmill's shaft and lashed him to a whirling blade? Seems unlikely, so Joe sets out to try to clear Missy's name for his wife's sake. Turns out there are no shortage of people who wanted Earl dead or who would like to see Missy go down for murder and Joe's trail leads him from resentful neighbors to a mafia-connected bank in Chicago. Although Box lays plenty of groundwork for the book's ending, it is still startling. Joe Pickett is no surprise, however. He remains a steady, persistent, honorable family man, just like in his previous ten novels which you may want to go back and read if you enjoy this one.

LW