"A Joe Pickett novel"--Cover.

The debut of a writer hailed by Tony Hillerman as "a great storyteller"--The first book in an engaging and gritty mystery series featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett. Few first mysteries have been welcomed as enthusiastically as Open Season, or with better cause. "When a high-powered bullet hits living flesh, it makes a distinctive -pow-WHOP-sound that is unmistakable even at tremendous distance." And so it begins for Joe Pickett, a Wyoming game warden who, with the shot of a rifle, is thrust into a race to save not only an endangered species, but also the life and family he loves. C.J. Box knows the wilderness and he knows how to create a wonderfully authentic, vividly alive sense of place. Most of all, he knows how to create a memorable new hero: a man who is full of failings, but strong and honorable. This is mystery writing at its best-and the beginning of a brilliant new career. Author Biography: C.J. Box, a native of Wyoming, has worked as a ranch hand, a surveyor, a fishing guide, and as a small-town newspaper reporter and editor. Box is the president and CEO of Rocky Mountain International Corporation, a company that coordinates marketing for the state tourism departments of Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Idaho.

Accelerated Reader,Grades 9-12,6.3,12,SD,Quiz 75486,English fiction.