Start of Box series a pleasant surprise

 I've had a stack of twenty C.J. Box books staring at me for a few months now. Finally decided to dig in.

I was skeptical at first because it seemed, from what I'd heard about them, that his Joe Pickett series seemed like kind of a rip-off of Craig Johnson's Longmire series. Both law enforcement dudes in Wyoming, trouble finds them, they shoot people and all is well. But, I was wrong (yes, wifey, you read that correctly). Box's first book of the series came out three years before the first Longmire book. And, knowing a bit about how the process works, it's likely they were both working on their characters at the same time unbeknownst to each other.

There are similarities of course, since there's only so much you can write about in Wyoming. There's cows, antelope, Yellowstone and the Big Horn Mountains. And, fortunately for these two authors, there are a lot of guns.

My skepticism began to subside though as I read the first book, Open Season. It takes a little different tact. Joe Pickett is not Walt Longmire. Joe is a game warden, new on the job, young, unsure of himself, easily intimidated and a poor shot.

It was good enough that I moved on to the second in the series, Savage Run. There were actually some interesting plot twists and characters. 

In both books, there was some unexpected violence I enjoyed and even some sexual innuendo that was surprising for the Western genre. Surprising, but not unwelcome.

I think I kind of had it in my head that if I liked Longmire I shouldn't like Joe Pickett out of some kind of loyalty to Walt. But, I can like Mitch Rapp and Jack Reacher. I can like Gabriel Allon and Lucas Davenport.

So I guess Joe Pickett and Walt Longmire can coexist in my head too.

As is often the case, I usually get to where I want to be in my head, but the road getting there is longer than it should be.

I put both books in the 7 of 10 range and will keep reading the series - in order, of course. But first I'm going to knock off the new Daniel Silva novel that just showed up in the mail. See what Gabriel is up to.