Friday, July 26, 2013

Breaking Point

Breaking Point
by C. J. Box
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2013.  367 pgs. Mystery

Joe Pickett, Box's Wyoming Fish and Game officer, heads for the hills in this story of a man apparently driven to homicide by the inexplicable and punitive excesses of the Environmental Protection Agency. Some of this narrative may seem far-fetched, but Butch Roberson's story is based on the true story of  the Sackett family in Idaho who battled the EPA to a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in their favor. In any case, Roberson is on the run and Joe is picked to head up a posse of EPA agents who don't know a stirrup from a saddle horn. Trying to track Butch, keep the greenhorns safe, and outrun a forest fire, Joe has plenty on his mind, especially when he finds his man and a different story than everyone supposes to be true. Box does his usual fine job of evoking and describing the Mountain West, as well as telling a ripsnorting but also thought-provoking tale.

LW

    

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