Paradise Valley

Starred review from May 15, 2017
Bestseller Box’s excellent conclusion to a quartet of loosely related novels that started with 2011’s Back of Beyond finds Cassie Dewell now the chief investigator for the Bakken County (N.Dak.) Sheriff’s Department. Cassie convinces her boss, Sheriff John Kirkbride, to approve a sting operation designed to entrap serial killer Ronald Pergram, an independent trucker who preys on truck stop prostitutes. Having eluded capture in 2013’s The Highway, the cunning Pergram gets wind of the plan and booby traps his truck, which explodes and kills several local police and feds involved in the operation, including Cassie’s fiancé. In the aftermath, Cassie is suspended and obnoxious county attorney Avery Tibbs subsequently forces her to resign. Meanwhile, Pergram goes on a kidnapping spree that leads to Cassie getting back on the force and the case. The intrepid, appealing Cassie relies on her keen investigative instincts to hone in on Pergram in this top-notch thriller, which makes vivid use of the American West. 250,000-copy announced first printing; author tour. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency.

March 1, 2017

Investigator Cassie Dewell is now jobless, the plan she set up for the Bakken County, ND, sheriff's department to ensnare a serial killer having badly derailed. So when a troubled boy she's been helping disappears, Cassie has the time and the impetus to search for him. With a one-day laydown on July 25.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2017
Though this one is billed as a stand-alone, Box fans will have a hard time not seeing it as part of a miniseries that began with Cody Hoyt in Back of Beyond (2011) and The Highway (2013) and then continued as Cody's partner, Cassie Dewell, took center stage in the excellent Badlands (2015). Dewell, chief investigator of the Bakken County Sheriff's Department in North Dakota, is still chasing truck-driving serial killer Ronald Pergram, aka the Lizard King, and thinks she's closing in as the book opens. When her initial effort is derailed, she finds herself off the force, tracking a couple of missing kids (one of them Kyle Westergaard, another returning character) without knowing the cases are linked together. Cassie is a great characterdogged yet self-doubtingand, in the Lizard King, Box has a villain well worthy of bringing back here. While the ending doesn't quite equal the breathless, thunderous climaxes he's given us before, Box deftly delivers page-turning suspense. Readers who couldn't put down Badlands will definitely want to pick this one up. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With a 250,000-copy print run, a national one-day laydown, and a 12-city author tour, libraries had better have multiple copies of Paradise Valley on the shelf.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2017

In this third installment of the series (after The Highway and Badlands), Cassie Dewell has been suspended from her job as chief investigator for the Bakken County, ND, sheriff's department, when her plan to capture the serial killer known as the Lizard King went badly awry. Pending an investigation, Cassie uses her free time to probe the disappearance of three Grimstad residents, including her son's friend, Kyle Westergaard. Clues lead Cassie to Paradise Valley, MT, childhood home of the Lizard King. Here, Cassie and her late partner, Cody Hoyt, had first uncovered the highway killer's gruesome deeds. With the help of mountain guide Bull Mitchell, Cassie tracks the Lizard King and his three captives to a remote cabin where, in a climatic finale, she comes face-to-face with the man she has long hunted. VERDICT Box's many fans will devour this dark thriller, which is sure to be another hit for the author. [See Prepub Alert, 3/1/17.]--Patricia Ann Owens, formerly at Illinois Eastern Community Coll., Mt. Carmel

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.