• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2015 May #1
  *Starred Review* Box has been making a series of sorts out of his stand-alones. Following the death of Cody Hoyt in The Highway (2013), Hoyt's partner, Cassie Dewell, now takes center stage as the new chief investigator in Grimstad, North Dakota, in the heart of the Bakken shale oil fields. Though she's still trying to catch the Lizard King, the truck-driving serial killer, she's instantly plunged into a whole new set of troubles as rival gangs clash and body parts are strewn all over town in the dead of winter. Caught in the middle is Kyle Westergaard, a 12-year-old born with fetal alcohol syndrome, who sees and knows more than anyone would ever suspect. Box's brilliant choice of setting is both timely and the perfect frozen hellscape for his story; the modern-day boomtown's runaway inflation, "man camps," and pent-up masculine energy hearken back to lawless days on the western frontier. And although he's placed kids in danger in other books, this could be the most effective of his thrillers since his Edgar-winning Blue Heaven (2008). The temperature on the northern plains may fall to 40 below, but the engine of this thriller races red hot, providing plenty of warmth to keep readers going all night. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The publisher is banking big on this one by printing a quarter of a million copies—double that of The Highway. If Box isn't a household name yet, he will be. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

C. J. Box is the New York Times bestselling author of many novels including the Joe Pickett series. He has won the Edgar Alan Poe Award for Best Novel (Blue Heaven, 2009) as well as the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, the Barry Award, and the 2010 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Award for fiction. Open Season, Blue Heaven, Nowhere to Run, and The Highway have been optioned for film and television. Over four million copies of his novels have been sold in the U.S. alone and they have been translated into twenty-seven languages. He lives in Wyoming.