Back of Beyond (Highway Quartet 1)
By: CJ Box
Published Year: 2011
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Pages: 372
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Cody Hoyt, while a brilliant cop, is an alcoholic struggling with two months of sobriety when his mentor and AA sponsor Hank Winters is found burned to death in a remote mountain cabin. At first it looks like the suicide of a man who's fallen off the wagon, but Cody knows Hank better than that. Sober for fourteen years, Hank took pride in his hard-won sobriety and never hesitated to drop whatever he was doing to talk Cody off a ledge. When Cody takes a closer look at the scene of his friend's death, it becomes apparent that foul play is at hand. After years of bad behavior with his department, he's in no position to be investigating a homicide, but this man was a friend and Cody's determined to find his killer.
When clues found at the scene link the murderer to an outfitter leading tourists on a multi-day wilderness horseback trip into the remote corners of Yellowstone National Park—a pack trip that includes his son Justin—Cody is desperate to get on their trail and stop the killer before the group heads into the wild. Among the tourists is fourteen-year-old Gracie Sullivan, an awkward but intelligent loner who begins to suspect that someone in their party is dangerous.
In a fatal cat and mouse game, where it becomes apparent the murderer is somehow aware of Cody's every move, Cody treks into the wilderness to stop a killer hell bent on ruining the only thing in his life he cares about.
First Impressions
Over my winter break I watched the first 5 episodes of the show Big Sky and loved it. I saw that it was based off of a novel so I immediately looked it up. Then discovered that it was actually based off of the second book in a series, so I decided to read the first book. I don’t know if this would have grabbed me based off of the cover, but I tend to avoid the books that have a giant male author’s name splashed across the cover.
What I thought
Well… I devoured that one.
Cody Hoyt is an alcoholic detective. When he discovers that his sponsor is dead, he is convinced that it is a murder and not an accidental death like his partner believes. When he discovers that the last website visited was for a back county wilderness trip, Cody decides that the killer must be on that trip.
I pretty much had a slow day and read this book instead. But, to say that it held my attention for an entire day to read it speaks volumes. I usually judge a mystery by my ability to figure out who did it and this one I only figured out about half of what was going on which I say is a win.
Hoyt is rough around the edge and I really enjoyed it. It definitely helps that he is just naturally gifted as a detective. If he wasn’t good at his job, he would have become very annoying. It also helped that he had a good heart, made obvious by the care that he has for his son.
The setting for this book was also intriguing. I haven’t read a book that took place in Montana/Wyoming before. The rough and tumble wild west was its own character and it brought a lot to this story. Once the tour group came into the story, it really started to pick up and I was completely sucked in. Even though there were a ton of characters, they were all made to be individuals and I wanted to learn more about all of them.
Admittedly, I was a bit worried that based off of what I had seen on the show and the description of the book it would be a bit graphic and violent. However, I would say that the Robert Galbraith novels are much more graphic and violent than this one. Not to say that it doesn’t have some violent scenes (one guy gets shot in the knee which is still making me cringe), but overall it wasn’t bad.
This was a solid mystery with a strong protagonist. I want to follow him on more cases, which I feel makes this book a success. It had me sucked in pretty quickly and by the end I couldn’t put it down. Is it an earth shatters twist the likes of which you’ve never seen? No. But it will keep you entertained and guessing the whole way.