Are you a C.J. Box fan? If so, you are in for a treat. Off The Grid is a great story and probably the best Box ever. There is a lot going on. The Governor asks Joe Picket to investigate some unusual activities. One of Joe’s daughters is in danger and no one knows it. Soe creepy intelligence types force Joe’s friend, Nate Romanowski, into helping the government in an off the books operation. There is a possible terrorist threat and more. These elements come together in this fast-paced story and things don’t look good for the home team.
Not long ago I listened to C.J. Box’s The Vicious Circle, which was a good story, but did not draw me in like this one. When reading The Vicious Circle I thought about how unbelievable it was. This was not the case with Off The Grid, which was so fast-pasted and pulled together enough current events issues that I wasn’t distracted by implausibility. Off The Grid is an earlier book in the series. Fortunately, they stories are sufficiently stand-alone that reading them out of order wasn’t an issue.
C.J. Box is a good story teller. Is it “great” writing? Well, there is a beautiful description in the beginning, but this is not high literature. They are fun stories. David Chandler does a good job as reader. Although he seems to favor an even cadence when presenting the story and isn’t presenting the story like an actor, his voice is now associated with Joe Picket stories and it would be hard to image a Joe Picket story without him. I haven’t seen any of C.J. Box’s stories on Netflix, but this one would be a hit. I thoroughly enjoyed it.