Englischsprachige Literatur

Box C. J.

Force of Nature

Putnam/Penguin, New York 2012

Galbraith3

C. J. Box seems to be cashing in on his fame and writes one book after the other without quite keeping track of what he wrote before. So Pickett´s stepdaughter April, who was brutally killed in “Winter Kill” 2003 is miraculously alive again, 16 now, in this latest thriller. And contrary to what the cover says, it is not a Joe Pickett novel, but one mainly about Nate Romanowski, the mysterious falconer and Pickett´s alter ego, just more brutal and trigger-happy.

Now we learn, why that is so. He was in a secret Special Forces Unit in Central Asia in 1999, where he and his boss Nemecek met Osama Bin Laden. If his boss had not protected Bin Laden, the army could have killed him then and there. Nate left the system with a bag full of cash (conveniently) and since then has been undercover. But his former boss has already killed several of Nate´s friends and is after him, and, a bit of a long shot, after the Pickett family. They get on the plane to LA, but in the last second Joe decides to help Nate instead. Again he finds himself stuck in the first snow of winter and a shootout in his beloved mountains.

Box knows what he is writing about, as long as he sticks to his familiar Wyoming mountains and the problems of the people there. If he keeps that in mind, he stays authentic and thus convincing. There are too many authors writing bad thrillers about terrorism already.