Blue Heaven (Box) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Retired policemen from Los Angeles, the killers easily persuade the local sheriff to let them lead the search for the missing children. Now there’s nowhere left for William and Annie to hide…and no one they can trust. Until they meet Jess Rawlins.... Grade ‘A’...don’t miss it.
Rocky Mountain News


At the start of this overly complicated thriller from bestseller Box, his first stand-alone, siblings Annie and William Taylor, ages 12 and 10, witness a gruesome murder in the woods outside the small Idaho town of Kootenai Bay, nicknamed Blue Heaven for its abundance of retired LAPD officers. Annie and William make a run for it after they're spotted by the killers, a group of crooked LAPD cops who retired to Idaho eight years earlier after pulling a complicated heist in California that left a man dead. Rancher Jess Rawlins becomes the children's only hope of survival after they take refuge in his barn. Jess must stay one step ahead of the killers, who have volunteered to help the local authorities investigate the children's disappearance. Annie and William's mother is frantic, as the scheming officers try to persuade her the children are gone for good. A subplot involving a retired California detective pursuing the original robbery case adds too many extra characters and undercuts the suspense. Readers expecting the same brisk story lines as the author's Joe Pickett crime novels will be disappointed.
Publishers Weekly


Two young kids witness a backwoods execution-style murder in their rural Idaho hamlet. Worse yet, the killers-four retired cops from Los Angeles-see the children and begin a dogged pursuit. Struggling rancher Jess Rawlins is surprised to find Annie and William hiding in his barn, but he's wise enough to believe their lurid tale. He also astutely recognizes the goodness of a stranger in town: Eduardo Villatoro, a retired detective, is determined to put one last unsolved case-a big one-to rest. Villatoro's case is the final nail in the coffin for these bad cops, and it's up to Jess and him to save the children. Readers will be anticipating the final shootout long before the bad guys catch on. Popular series author Box's first venture into stand-alone territory is a quick, satisfying, and straightforward—if fairly transparent—read. It should appeal to readers looking for a contemporary Western with an infusion of thriller; Michael McGarrity's books come to mind. Recommended for larger popular collections.
Teresa L. Jacobsen - Library Journal


[Blue Heaven] features likably flawed good guys...and springs the noble western archetypes at just the right moment to have us cheering.... And Box builds suspense so brilliantly that Blue Heaven could serve as a textbook of how to do it. —Keir Graff
Booklist


All hell breaks loose in Kootenai Bay, Idaho, after two children on a fishing trip witness an execution in this stand-alone from the chronicler of Game Warden Joe Pickett (Free Fire, 2007, etc.). "Blue Heaven" is what members of the LAPD call North Idaho when they retire here. The place has spectacular natural beauty and a tight community full of concerned neighbors who come running when Monica Taylor's son and daughter disappear. As ex-detective Eduardo Villatoro realizes, the place also has in circulation a suspicious number of $100 bills from a robbery at the Santa Anita Racetrack that left an armored car driver dead eight years ago. Even though he's retired, Villatoro can't let go of the case. But his arrival coincides with the massive hunt that's been staged for Annie and William Taylor, and he can't get anywhere with ineffectual Sheriff Ed Carey, who's farmed out the search to four retired L.A. cops. Even worse, these cops, the last people in the world who should be guarding the henhouse, have framed an innocent man for kidnapping the children and all but imprisoned Monica in her own home. The family's only hope is an aging rancher who can barely hold onto his spread and the banker who refuses to foreclose on him. Dropping the whodunit element that's always been the weakest part of Pickett's cases, Box alternates violence with surprising tenderness in a suspenseful tour de force.
Kirkus Reviews