Don’t miss the JOE PICKETT series—now streaming on Paramount+ Joe Pickett’s friend’s past comes back to haunt everyone he cares about in this “violent, bloody, and quite satisfying thriller”* from #1 New York Times bestselling author C. J. Box. In 1995, Nate Romanowski was in a Special Forces unit abroad when his commander, John Nemecek, did something terrible. Now the high-ranking government official and cold-blooded sociopath is determined to eliminate anyone who knows about it—like Nate, who’s hidden himself away in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains. And he knows exactly how Nemecek will do it—by targeting Nate's friends to draw him out. That includes his friend, game warden Joe Pickett, and Pickett’s entire family. The only way to fight back is outside the law. Nate knows he can do it, but he isn't sure about his straight-arrow friend. And all their lives could depend on it. ONE OF LIBRARY JOURNAL ’S BEST MYSTERIES OF THE YEAR Praise for Force of Nature “A rush...an excellent wilderness adventure.”—* The New York Times Book Review “Proceeds at warp speed.”— The Denver Post “Moves like greased lightning.”— Kirkus Reviews “Perhaps the best in the series.”— San Jose Mercury News “Violent...Those who love Box’s stunning set pieces will be in heaven.”— Booklist (starred review) “Absolutely riveting...This is the best Box I’ve ever read, and I’ve read them all.”— Library Journal (starred review) More Praise for the C. J. Box and the Joe Pickett novels   “One of today’s solid-gold, A-list, must-read writers.”—Lee Child   “Picking up a new C. J. Box thriller is like spending quality time with family you love and have missed...It’s a rare thriller series that has characters grow and change. An exciting reading experience for both loyal fans as well as newcomers.”—Associated Press   “Box is a master.”— The Denver Post “Box knows what readers expect and delivers it with a flourish.”— Cleveland Plain Dealer   “Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett strides in big boots over the ruggedly gorgeous landscape of C.J. Box's outdoor mysteries.”— The New York Times Book Review   “Riveting...[A] skillfully crafted page-turner.”— People   “Will keep you on the edge of your seat.”— The Philadelphia Enquirer C. J. Box is the author of twenty-five Joe Pickett novels, eight stand-alone novels, and a story collection. He has won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe, and two Barry awards, as well as the French Prix Calibre .38, the Western Heritage Award for Literature, and two Spur Awards. An avid outdoorsman, Box has hunted, fished, hiked, ridden, and skied throughout Wyoming and the Mountain West. He has been executive producer on television series based on his books, including ABC TV’s Big Sky and Joe Pickett on Paramount+. FORCE OF NATURE ALSO BY C. J. BOX THE JOE PICKETT NOVELS Cold Wind Nowhere to Run Below Zero Blood Trail Free Fire In Plain Sight Out of Range Trophy Hunt Winterkill Savage Run Open Season THE STAND-ALONE NOVELS Back of Beyond Three Weeks to Say Goodbye Blue Heaven FORCE OF NATURE For Gordon Crawford, falconer And Laurie, always … Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. —William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming” Table of Contents Part One 1 2 3 4 5 Part Two 7 8 9 10 11 12 Part Three 13 14 15 16 17 18 Part Four 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Part Five 26 27 28 29 30 Part Six 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Afterword Acknowledgments       THE MORNING AFTER HIS NAME WAS Dave Farkus, and he’d recently taken up fly-fishing as a way to meet girls. So far, it hadn’t worked out very well. It was late October, one of those wild fall days containing a fifty-five-degree swing from dawn to dusk, and Farkus stood mid-thigh in waders in the Twelve Sleep River that coursed through the town of Saddlestring, Wyoming. River cottonwoods were so drunk with color the leaves hurt his eyes. Farkus was short and wiry, with muttonchop sideburns and a slack expression on his face. He’d parked his pickup under the bridge and waded out into the river at mid-morning just as a late-fall Trico hatch created clouds of insects that billowed like terrestrial clouds along the surface of the water. A few trout were rising for them, slurping them down, but he hadn’t hooked one yet. Trico flies were not only tiny and hard to tie on his line, they were difficult to see on the water. He was at wits’ end since he’d relocated to the Twelve Sleep Valley from southern Wyoming. He’d landed in Saddlestring with no job, and he didn’t intend to look for one, except the damned natural-gas pipeline company was challenging his disability payments, claiming he’d never really been injured. And his ex-wife, Ardith, had contacted