Great suspenseful police procedural

Badlands: A Novel

By: C. J. Box

Rating: 5 of 5

I recently discovered C. J. Box and his Joe Pickett series so I was thrilled to get an opportunity to read “Badlands”. This is a stand-alone novel but one which I hope will be developed into a series of its own.

The story revolves around two individuals, Kyle Westergaard and Cassie Dewell. Kyle is a small for his age twelve year old who has some learning issues due to fetal alcohol syndrome. People are inclined to think of him as somehow slow when in truth, he just doesn’t see the point of talking as most people don’t understand him. Cassie is a detective who has been on the trail of the “Lizard King” for years. This criminal has been involved in the abduction and murder of many women over the years. Cassie takes a new job as Chief Investigator in the new wild west of the North Dakota oil boom country in Grimstad in Bakken county. Turns out that Kyle is a resident of Grimstead, too.

That is the set up for the story. From there we see how each of these two characters slowly but surely are on a collision course with one another. There are many twists and turns – some of which were fairly obvious from the beginning, some which were not. By the end, I still want to know more about the characters and about the area that they live in. I am guessing that the author has based his stats on actual cities and counties in the area and I was astounded by the sheer volume of growth numbers – both good and bad.

I really enjoyed the book and recommend to any adult who likes suspense novels. While I read to catch up with Joe Pickett, I am certainly also hoping to see more of Cassie in future books.

I received a complimentary copy of this book via the publisher.