Good evening.

This is Inside the Cover.

And I am Ted Ayres, the lucky fellow who gets to spend time with yo each week talking about books.

Thanks for watching PBS Kansas.

The home of seriously good television here in south central Kansas.

Tonight I want to feature one of m favorite fiction authors, C.J.

Box and Nowhere to Run, a part of his Joe Pickett series.

It is now time to go inside the cover.

Charles James Box, Jr was born in 1958.

He is a Wyoming native, growing up in the city of Casper.

He graduated with a degree in mass communications from the University of Denver, and he enjoys fishing golfing, and outdoor activities.

He is also very much enamored with his home state.

Box is the author of more than 30 novels, including his Joe Pickett series.

Box is a master of creating riveting, well-formed characters and putting them in a place that is remote, beautiful, and sometimes deadly.

Box uses the fictionalized and romantic myth of the Wild West, and dispels it with the sometimes harsh realities of the real West.

The first novel in the series was Open Season, which was included in The New York Time list of notable books of 2021.

Open Season won four different awards in the Best First Novel category.

Joe Pickett is a Wyoming game warden.

Over the years Joe has taken on environmental terrorists, rogue federal land managers, animal mutilators, crazed cowboy hitmen, corrupt bureaucrats, homicidal animal rights advocates, and violent dysfunctional families.

In that time, Joe has matured, lost some of his innocence and naivete, and committed acts that continue to haunt him.

But through it all, Pickett has remained tru to himself and his family.

His wife Mary Beth, and daughters Sheridan, Lucy and April.

And even when he knows that pursuing justic will bring the community, state and his superiors down on his head... he just can't help himself.

As Pickett says, he works hard and trie sincerely to do the right thing.

Speaking personally, I find Joe Pickett to be a very likabl and very believable character.

Nowhere to Run was the 10th novel featuring the exploits and foibles of Joe Pickett, coming out in April of 2010.

In this novel, as noted above Joe tries to do the right thing, ultimately putting himself at significant risk.

When Joe comes upon two men in an isolated part of the mountains, he begins a chain of event that nearly cost him his life, and places him ultimately in a position where doing the right thing may be impossible.

Somehow, Box ties togethe a story involving a corrupt U.S. senator from Michigan, a real estate developer who seeks to play the system and use his political connections to achieve a huge financial windfall from real estate, located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

An Olympic hopeful long distance runner who seemingly disappeared two years ago while she was training in the mountains, and two strange and unusual brothers.

Box also addresses some important philosophical and political points of view regarding government and citizens rights.

Perhaps summarized by this statement from Game Warden Pickett “We can't have the rule of law if people can choose which laws they want to obey based on their philosophy an point of view.” That's our show.

Tonight we have featured C.J.

Box and his novel Nowhere to Run, and thanks to Dale and Vera, the dog, for the gift of this book.

Good night and I look forward to our next conversation.