num_pages: 278
description: Joe Pickett is the new game warden in Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, a town where nearly everyone hunts, and the game warden--especially one like Joe who won't take bribes or look the other way--is far from popular. When he finds a local hunting outfitter dead, splayed out on the woodpile behind his state-owned home, he takes it personally. There had to be a reason that the outfitter, with whom he's had run-ins before, chose his backyard, his woodpile to die in. Even after the "outfitter murders," as they have been dubbed by the local press after the discovery of the two more bodies, are solved, Joe continues to investigate, uneasy with the easy explanation offered by the local police. As Joe digs deeper into the murders, he soon discovers that the outfitter brought more than death to his backdoor: he brought Joe an endangered species, thought to be extinct, which is now living in his woodpile. But if word of the existence of this endangered species gets out, it will destroy any chance of InterWest, a multi-national natural gas company, building an oil pipeline that would bring the company billions of dollars across Wyoming, through the mountains and forests of Twelve Sleep. The closer Joe comes to the truth behind the outfitter murders, the endangered species and InterWest, the closer he comes to losing everything he holds dear.
language: English
title: Open Season
titlecomplete: Open Season (Joe Pickett, #1)
characters: Marybeth Pickett, Sheridan Pickett, Wacey Hedeman, Joe Pickett, April Keeley, Vern Dunnegan, Missy Vankeuran, Lucy Pickett, O.R. "Bud" Barnum
genres: Adventure, Mystery, Adult, Suspense, Thriller, Westerns, Audiobook, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Crime
ratings_count: 43781
places: Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, Wyoming
series: Joe Pickett
awards: awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Barry Award
category: Best First Novel, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Macavity Award
category: Best First Mystery Novel, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Anthony Award
category: Best First Novel, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Gumshoe Award
category: Best First Novel, awardedAt: -62167190400000
name: Los Angeles Times Book Prize
category: Best First Mystery Novel, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Edgar Award
category: Best First Novel
publisher: Putnam