Interview with C. J. Box
Author of the beloved Joe Pickett series and critically acclaimed stand-alones like Blue Heaven, C. J. Box uses his series to explore, through the eyes of ordinary and honest Joe Pickett, the varied and controversial issues that confront Wyoming.
A Wyoming native himself, C. J. Box has a degree in Mass Communications from the University of Denver and owned an international tourism marketing firm with his wife. The Joe Pickett series draws on Box’s own love of the outdoors—demonstrated by his background as a ranch hand, surveyor, and fishing guide—and his deep love for Wyoming and the people that inhabit it.
The latest addition to the Joe Pickett series, Storm Watch, begins with the game warden protagonist discovering the body of a University of Wyoming professor outside a high-tech facility. But investigation leads to complication and soon shed hunters and corrupt government officials are just a few of the issues that Pickett must deal with.
In our interview, Box discusses how he developed protagonist Joe Pickett, why he focuses on current and controversial issues, and the unique perspective of game wardens.
AW: My first question is, could you tell us a little bit about the latest Joe Pickett novel, Storm Watch?
CJB: Sure. It’s the 23rd Joe Pickett novel and it concerns a lot of different things. In the beginning, Joe Pickett discovers a body outside of a strange high-tech facility in the mountains during a big snowstorm, and he identifies the body as a University of Wyoming professor. But when he goes to investigate who the guy is, why he might be there, what was going on, he gets shut down in every direction including from his own governor. Being Joe Pickett, he goes ahead and investigates anyway and it really does lead to a lot of different, strange directions. At the same time, Nate Romanowski, his buddy, is approached by another outlaw falconer about joining a movement basically to try to secede from the Union. And these two storylines operate in parallel throughout the book, but then converge.
AW: In the Joe Pickett series, you often deal with current issues like that. In Storm Watch, you talk about cryptocurrency mining and militant activists. What do you think is so important about addressing these issues? And what is different about the Wyoming perspective on these topics?
CJB: Since the very first book, I have included real issues and controversies and arguments in all of the books; they aren’t simply whodunnits. Part of the reason is to make it much more contemporary to Wyoming and to the Mountain West and also for readers who might be interested in the kind of culture and thought processes going on in the Mountain West these days or whenever the book takes place. I enjoy incorporating those kinds of things into the plot line and doing the research on them. I’m constantly amazed how much stuff is going on out there in an area with very few people, really, and a lot of land. As far as the Wyoming point of view, it always goes back to the fact that Wyoming, like a lot of Mountain West states, has a lot of conflicts with the federal government because so much of the land is managed by the federal government, by different agencies. So whoever the Secretary of the Interior is, is kind of like our president. Therefore, issues change, the economy changes, emphasis on who can do what changes constantly, and so there’s always a conflict between the people who live here and those who manage it.
AW: In researching for these books and coming up with different Wyoming-specific issues, has that changed your view of Wyoming?
CJB: Somewhat in that I’m always being more convinced that there is no black and white to so many controversial issues. There are well meaning people on both sides trying to advance their agendas. And writing a book that has a specific agenda intended to just convince readers this is the way it is, is not the right way to go. I like to include arguments from both sides of all these environmental and energy-related issues, federal land management issues. I just trust the reader to come down where they may, but I do want to be accurate about the arguments.
AW: I definitely noticed in looking at the different books that there’s not just one side that’s represented. It’s, like you’re talking about, both sides of the spectrum of extremism and how that affects people, which is pretty interesting.
CJB: I think it’s important to do that. I don’t think most mystery, crime procedural readers pick up a book to be lectured to by the writer about politics or cultural issues, but I think it does make the books more interesting if those issues are explored evenly.
AW: I agree. Do you think that having a game warden as your protagonist changed how you approached the mystery genre and what you deal with in your mysteries?
CJB: It does. Absolutely. In real life, you know, game wardens in Wyoming have a different role than they do in a lot of other states. In a lot of states, they’re called conservation officers and their primary purpose is to enforce fish and game regulations. In Wyoming, game wardens have a much wider net and they’re considered law enforcement. So they can and do get involved with things way beyond giving a fisherman a ticket. In very rural areas, sometimes they’re called in to get involved in crimes and investigations that really don’t have that much to do with game and fish regulations.
AW: You’ve said at some point that you’ve gone on patrols with game wardens to understand what’s exactly going on. What were those experiences like?
CJB: I always learn, even 24 years of doing this, new things every time I do, basically, a ride-along with game wardens. I’ve never gone out on any kind of real high-stakes investigations or hostage situations or anything like that, although they exist. But no, usually what I learned more is about procedure. What are the issues that game wardens face being in effect agents for the states? In the case of Storm Watch, I learned a lot about something that’s kind of obscure but kind of a big deal out here and that’s what’s called shed hunting. That means, you know, deer and elk annually drop their antlers and then they regrow new ones. Those dropped antlers are called sheds and they’re very valuable. Traders pay up to $20 a pound for a shed and elk sheds can weigh up to 80 pounds. So it’s kind of getting into big money. There are shed hunters that can operate legally or in the case of the book, operate illegally. I’ve got some of their methods in this book.
AW: Would you like to talk about those methods?
CJB: In this case, it’s based on a real case not far from where I live. There’s a certain season for going into the wilderness and picking up sheds where it’s legal to do so. But prior to that legal opening, there have been a few instances where shed hunters on snowmobiles basically herd elk into really heavy timber, and as they enter the timber the branches knocked their antlers off. It also stresses the animals and in effect helps kill some of them because they’ve been stressed in really deep snow. Then the shed hunters go and gather up the antlers before the season legally starts. It’s very hard to catch these guys, and that’s an issue that Joe Pickett is dealing with in this book.
AW: You describe Joe Pickett as a Western archetype whose fatal flaw is an unvarying commitment to doing the right thing. How did you approach developing that character while still staying true to that archetype?
CJB: You know, from the very first book I wanted Joe Pickett to be very much an ordinary man who didn’t have superpowers, who couldn’t beat up everybody or outshoot everyone around. And in fact, he makes mistakes, he bumbles, he sometimes goes down the wrong track. I think it makes Joe Pickett more interesting, but I also think it ups the tension when you know that he’s not always going to figure everything out. I’ve met an awful lot of game wardens over the years who are very much like Joe Pickett and they’re just trying to do their jobs as well as they can. They’re very alone. They don’t have a lot of backup, you know. They’re not corrupt and the reason they go into that profession is to do the right thing.
AW: I thought that was one thing that was very interesting about Joe in that he’s a very human protagonist. He makes mistakes and you describe him as “a lousy shot”. Did having such a flawed, realistic character as your protagonist complicate what you could write about or how you approached writing your stories?
CJB: No, it hasn’t really complicated… I think it’s kind of complemented it because then as Joe investigates issues and controversies it’s then revealed to the reader new things. In Storm Watch, for example, it’s not the central part of the book or the story, but there’s crypto mining out in the wilderness as a part of the story, and that’s based on a real thing. There are a lot of oil capped, oil and gas, wells in the West. Over the last decade or so, cryptocurrency miners have figured out how to put facilities and computers on top of those old gas mines because one thing that’s not well known is that crypto mining is very energy intensive. A lot of people who are really into crypto don’t even like to talk about that fact—how much energy it uses. The only way it can operate and survive is to use more and more and more energy. So that’s an ethical dilemma for a lot of people who are involved in the cryptocurrency markets.
AW: How did you balance and manage characters like Joe and Nate across 23 books and develop their character arcs?
CJB: Well, not with a lot of foresight. I’ve never planned the whole arc. I just go one book at a time. Since the very beginning, the books have been told in real time; therefore, their characters change, they get older. Joe Pickett’s daughters now are all out of the home, whereas in the very first book they were little, little kids, seven years old and four years old. I think by doing the books in real time there are natural changes and personality changes, and they’re affected by things that happened in previous books. I think it’s realistic to do that, and I hear often from readers that they enjoy following the family and the development of the families as much as anything else. It was never strategic, but it’s something I’m interested in, too. Therefore, there’s always a change with each book because circumstances change.
AW: Yeah, that’s definitely a natural way of progressing the characters.
CJB: I was just gonna say, you know, I’m a reader, too. I love series and I start to get turned off of series when the characters don’t age, when in every book they’re seriously injured and then the next book they’re just fine and start over and there’s no reference to what happened. I mean, you have to suspend disbelief anyway in order to follow a long, long series, and I think that just complicates things when the protagonists are just static in time, taking on new dilemmas every book
AW: It definitely feels like the stakes are different with that. Over the course of the 23 books, how has your understanding of your characters changed?
CJB: I don’t think it’s changed that much other than it’s just deepened with, you know, experience. I think they’ve gotten somewhat wiser just because of the experiences they’ve gone through, including Joe’s children. Nate Romanowski’s situation has changed. He’s now a happily married man with a little one, very much unlike the way he was in the first books. So I think as they mature, they change like everyone does.
AW: When did you first start writing?
CJB: I think if you’re a writer, you’ve always sort of been one. I think it’s hardwired. I mean, I remember even in grade school just writing stories just for me. But then my path was more journalism than creative writing. Once I started getting into high school and college, I was a newspaper reporter for a while and wrote columns but always wanted to write that novel. It took me, you know, four years for the first book to be published, but since then I’ve been on a tear and I still love it as much as I ever did.
AW: What are you currently reading?
CJB: I, just a couple of days ago, finished Michael Connelly’s new book Desert Star, which I thought was just exceptionally good. I’m a big Connelly fan, and I thought this was one of his best books ever, so just finished that. I’m also reading Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts, which is huge, and it’s going to take me a while to get done with that. But I always have a pile of books that are sent to me to blurb, and so I’m always diving into those as well.
AW: You mentioned this a little bit, but you have a degree in Mass Communications, and you’ve worked in marketing. How did those experiences contribute to or influence your writing? Does it influence your writing at all?
CJB: I think so. Especially, I think, a journalistic background because as a journalist you have to produce on a deadline. Things need to be fact-based, and they require research and time and kind of a focus. You can’t just doodle around until you’ve got something; you’ve got to really attack it. And I think that that background, as a writer, is very helpful. Especially when I talk to other authors that sometimes they’re really struggling with that next book or getting the book done on time, that kind of thing. If they don’t have that background, I think it can sometimes hurt them.
AW: It’s hard to be disciplined with writing and be consistent with it. If you’re just waiting for the inspiration to strike, you end up not writing at all.
CJB: Right? I think if I was waiting for inspiration, I would be on book two.
AW: I was gonna say, you’re a very prolific writer. You’re on your 23rd book. How did you keep up that steady stream of books?
CJB: I mean, actually there’s 30 books because there are books outside the series: Cassie Dewell books and Blue Heaven and so on. I just look at it as going to work every day like everyone else. I basically work five days a week, sometimes six, and I just have a limit or a goal every day of how many words I do. Once I really get into that process—after I do the research, do the outline—I don’t want to say it goes quickly, but I’ve never missed a deadline. Once I start and I just, like I said, go to work every day and push it forward.
AW: All right. My last question for you is, do you have any advice for new writers?
CJB: I do. Sometimes it’s not well received, but when I meet fledgling writers at a conference or on the road I often ask them what they read and if they read widely besides whatever genre or interest that they have. Often, they don’t and my advice is to read books—read books that you’re not interested in that are very successful and figure out what that author did. I think too many fledgling writers get so into their own head that what they’re writing may be interesting to them, but it’s not very interesting to other people. So I just think it’s important to read widely, not just in the mystery or crime genre, and have a well-rounded kind of knowledge before really commencing.