Whether reading about game warden Joe Pickett or private investigator Cassie Dewell, C.J. Box knows how to spin a tale that makes readers keep turning the pages. Although I like Joe, I have to admit that I have a special fondness for Cassie, and watching her solve the two cases in Treasure State was a real treat.

Cassie shines in Treasure State, but so do the secondary characters: her new intern, April Pickett; her annoying mother Isabel; the young Kyle Westergaard who's determined to find the treasure no matter how hard Cassie tries to stop him; even the Lothario who roams the country stealing as much money from women as he can-- all these characters keep readers fully engaged in the story.

Both cases Cassie is investigating are gems, and I love watching her mind work as she pieces things together. She always works hard to be one step ahead of the bad guys in order to keep herself and all those she cares about safe. It's refreshing to have the main character go out of her way not to do anything stupid.

Having spent many happy hours out in the middle of nowhere (and closer afield) locating old mining towns in the mountains and deserts of Arizona and learning their fascinating histories, I soaked up everything Box had to say about Montana's mining past, in particular, the town of Anaconda, a town long considered to be the heart of the American labor movement.

Characters, mysteries, history-- Treasure State was downright fun to read, and I can't wait to see what Cassie Dewell gets up to next.

(Review copy courtesy of the publisher and Net Galley)

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I would have given this novel 5 stars except for a totally gratuitous and completely obnoxious couple of pages caricaturing someone for being supercautious about Covid when everyone else has put the pandemic behind them. This had nothing to do with the main plot of the book. I don't know why authors do this. Maybe they just can't restrain themselves from giving free rein to their ugliest prejudices when they know they have a loyal audience.

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Not one of C.J. Box's best with Cassie DeWell, but entertaining nonetheless!

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Well, I got my C.J. Box fix until his next Joe Pickett novel comes out sometime next year. I have been a fan of Box ever since reading my first Pickett novel several years ago. Since then, I have read everything he has written and I'm never disappointed in them. TREASURE STATE is the sixth book featuring Cassie Dewell, a PI working in Montana who is also a former cop and was instrumental in dealing with the notorious "Lizard King", the serial killer featured in Box's Highway novels. In TREASURE STATE, Cassie is hired to try to find another PI who was looking for a man who conned a Florida woman out of several million dollars. The PI was last heard from in Anaconda, Montana, an old town that once smelted the copper that was mined in nearby Butte. Cassie is also hired by a man who supposedly hid a treasure of gold somewhere in the West and left a long poem with clues to its location in a Montana restaurant. The man wants Cassie to try to identify him to see if someone could also do so and use the information to find the treasure. A young man named Kyle, who was a friend of Cassie's son and who was abducted in an earlier novel, is looking for the treasure and plays a key role in the novel. As usual, Box throws in a few surprises along the way and some unexpected violence.

I enjoyed this one and sometimes feel that the Cassie Dewell novels are on a par or a little above the Pickett series. The TV series Big Sky is based on the Dewell books but although I like the TV show, I don't think it portrays Cassie anywhere close to how she is in the novels. In the novels, she is a lone PI working mostly on her own, but in the TV show she is usually working together with Jenny Hoyt, a police detective, and others. The show just doesn't have the feel of the books which are excellent. Anyway, I'll be looking forward to the next one by Box!

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