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Author's genre: environmental Western novel

By Victor Yang Herald-Leader Staff Writer

Crime thrillers, familial love and environmental activism usually don't find themselves together in the same book. But all three elements blend into Below Zero, the ninth novel in 2009 Edgar Award winner C.J. Box's Joe Pickett series.

On the shelves, Below Zero (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $24.50) might be classified as a mystery or thriller. But Box says if he were to come up with a precise category for his work, he would call it a "contemporary environmental Western novel."

Box will be at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington on Thursday to promote Below Zero.

The book's plot operates on two sensational story lines. The novel opens with Stenko, a Chicago mobster who spends the last few weeks of his life on a cross-country crime spree in an effort to offset his lifelong carbon footprint — to bring it below zero. The other focuses on the family of protagonist Joe Pickett, a Wyoming game warden. They receive text messages that are purportedly from his foster daughter April, who was killed in a massacre six years ago.

The seemingly unrelated stories start to intersect when Joe realizes the texts are originating from the same sites as Stenko's crime scenes. His family and the murderers begin to cross paths, leaving looming questions about April's fate and Stenko's identity. The book interweaves the suspense characteristic of thrillers with "a lot of deep soul-searching and angst," Box says.

"The scenes are not so much police procedurals as crime thrillers with an environmental streak," he says.

In other words, Box introduces truth through fiction. Each book in his Joe Pickett series tackles controversial topics on the environment, following the Wyoming native's personal passion for the outdoors.

Using fiction as his tool, Box creates characters who stand toward the extreme of each side of the issue, thereby presenting unique perspectives and a balanced viewpoint for his readers. His novels illustrate that "not all environmentalists are saints, not all developers are devils," he says.

Below Zero carries an environmental theme similar to Box's previous books but on a much "bigger canvas," he says. The earlier Joe Pickett books tended to focus on localized issues in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming, but Below Zero seizes on global warming and carbon offsets. The topics enable Box to rush his readers through a journey from Chicago to Wisconsin to Wyoming.

To incorporate such big-picture themes, Box conducted extensive research on carbon-offset companies and calculating one's guilt. He explores the concept of selling off one's own guilt of contributing to global warming — and then takes it to the extreme in Below Zero.

"Stenko (and his companions) work on the same kind of principle (erasing one's carbon footprint) but on steroids," Box says.

Although he wrestles with big issues, Box writes in a straightforward, brisk style that betrays his journalistic background. He never had his heart set on becoming a novelist during his childhood — he worked as a newspaper reporter and columnist at the start of his career — but then he realized he could never find the kinds of books that he wanted to read. He decided that if no one else was writing those novels, he would, Box says.

And he is excited about making his annual trip to Lexington, one of his favorite book tour spots.

"The crowds are some of the biggest that I see all year long," he says, "and I think (Joseph-Beth) is the coolest bookstore in the country."