Off The Grid

 

I just finished Off the Grid, the latest mystery from C J Box.  It is a Joe Pickett novel.  Joe Pickett is a Game and Fish Warden from Wyoming. He is a great Game warden and a terrible shot.  So his favorite weapon is a shotgun.

This book involves a bear attack and the tracking of the rogue bear, a terrorist plot and falconry, all in one great book.

Most of the Joe Pickett books feature Nate Romanowski, a former Special Forces operative that now lives off the grid and flies his falcons.  He has gotten Joe into trouble with his less than stellar view of some of the things the government does.  He has also saved Joe and his family from armed people with evil intent.

The main thrust of this book is a small group of idealists who are upset at NSA for the collection of Metadata, all phone, email and texting data, for possible future use.  He devises a way to fry the computers with an electromagnetic pulse and destroy all the collected data.   A Middle Eastern terrorist cell wants to steal the mobile machines made by this group and destroy airplanes, hospitals and even the electric grid all across the United States. 

It is up to Nate and Joe to stop them. In the middle of a Wyoming desert, with no cell service to call for help.  On top of that, Joe's daughter, Sheridan has been recruited by her college roommate to spend this particular weekend to help out the group.  So Joe and Nate have to rescue a bunch of college students and save the world.  No problem.  Game wardens are trained for this sort of thing!

All of Box's books are exciting and fresh.  His characters are compelling.  When I worked in a library I would sometimes get a man that hadn't really read a lot of fiction and he wanted a recommendation.  If he enjoyed the outside and nature, I would recommend C J Box and they would always come back and get the rest of his books.  A fabulous writer.