Three – Inch Teeth

By C.J. Box

(Putnam, 2024)

Genre: Fiction/Crime Thriller

Pages: 369 (Print)

Via: Library

If you’re ever in a tight spot in the wilds of Wyoming, Joe Pickett’s your guy. Especially when facing down not one but two rogue killers – human and animal – in this riveting new crime thriller by Western author C.J. Box.

All is not well in Twelve Sleep County, Wyoming. A rogue grizzly bear has gone on a rampage, killing, among others, the potential fiancé of Game Warden Joe Pickett’s daughter. Meanwhile, ruthless con Dallas Cates is released from prison. Joe put him there years ago. Cates makes skunks look good. He has a special list tattooed on his skin. Has Cates really figured out how to kill the people he blames for ruining his life and make it look like a grizzly attack?

Quartet

Cates is joined by ruthless ex-Special Forces dude Axel Soledad. (Box readers will recognize this cold-bolded killer from prior Pickett novels.) Malevolent and ruthless, Soledad is the kind of guy who does a drive-by shooting at a middle school to create a “diversion.” He’s a real piece of work. So is Cates’s other compadre, former cell mate and psychopathic mechanical genius Lee Ogburn-Russell (LOR). A clueless, easily manipulated “girlfriend” who corresponded with Cates while he was in the clink, Bobbi Johnson, rounds out the unsavory – and deadly – quartet.

But wait. It gets worse.

The List

Because Joe Pickett, his friend and master falconer Nate Romanowski, and Romanowski’s wife, Liv, are on Cates’ list.

In the meantime, Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan the would-be fiancé of dead guy Clay Hutmacher, Jr., is a master falconer working for Nate Romanowski’s Yarak, Inc. She takes a quintet of falcons to a remote ranch in Colorado. Leon Bottom’s barn is over-run with thousands of starlings. He wants them removed. Bottom contacts Yarak to get the job done.

Sheridan and Katy

While at Never Summer Ranch, Sheridan meets a cantankerous housekeeper, Katy Cotton. Sheridan can’t shake the feeling that she knows the hostile, acerbic woman somehow. What Sheridan discovers shakes her to her core.( Incidentally, this one was one the weakest parts of the book. There’s clearly more to Bottom than meets the eye. This is never explained. Ditto why he’s constantly on the phone with his “bankers.” It’s a loose end that’s left dangling, perhaps to be revisited in later books. But it’s an open loop and left us wondering.)

Back in Wyoming, Cates and his motley band of malevolent lunatics are making progress on Cates’s “list.” They’re murdering people one after another and making it look like a bear attack. After an unexpected loss, Nate goes on the warpath. Cates expects Nate to go nuclear – “nuclear and sloppy and … reckless.” But the master falconer and ex-sniper doesn’t do reckless. He doesn’t miss, either.

But it’s one of our fave characters – Pickett’s resourceful and intrepid librarian wife, Marybeth, who first figures out the “coincidences” between the recent  “bear” attacks. And Joe doesn’t believe in coincidences.

Can he unravel the murder mystery and get to the truth before it’s too late?

Talk about a white-knuckler. Don’t start this book late at night. It had us up till four in the morning turning pages. Cuz we couldn’t put it down! Three-Inch Teeth is an expert blend of crime thriller, Western, murder mystery, family ties, and outdoor adventure.

Warning

Warning: This book exceeds our standards for profanity and violence. But considering who the bad guys are – a bunch of psychopathic lunatics and cold-blooded killers – the dialogue and action are consistent with same. This may be too much for sensitive readers. So be forewarned. (We’re giving Three-Inch Teeth high marks because it’s a well-crafted, structurally sound work of fiction with solid writing, a razor-sharp plot, pitch-perfect pacing, and tons of suspense. Otherwise, the profanity would result in demerits. So be forewarned again.)

Didn’t See

As this riveting read winds down, it includes double-crosses and treachery Mom never saw coming. Kimber: Her Momness actually gasped. She hardly ever does that. Also an I-did-not-see-that-coming ending.

So if you enjoy crime thrillers set in the wilds of Wyoming and unusual plot twists by the truckload (and aren’t easily offended), consider saddling up and grabbing a copy of Three-Inch Teeth.  You may also want to pick up a can of bear spray. But that’s another story…

Our Rating: 4.0