Below Zero

C. J. Box's gripping ninth installment in the Joe Pickett series, "Below Zero," catapults readers into a heart-stopping mystery when a phone message shatters the Pickett family's world: Joe's foster daughter, April, presumed dead six years prior in a horrific massacre, might still be alive. Initially skeptical, Joe Pickett, a Wyoming game warden haunted by his failure to save April, is forced to reconsider when his daughter Sheridan receives texts containing intimate family details only April could know. As the messages escalate to ominous warnings of "bad things" and Marybeth discovers their origins trace a path of vicious murders across the West, Joe, Sheridan, and the enigmatic Nate Romanowski embark on a desperate cross-country journey to find April and protect her from danger. Meanwhile, a dying Chicago mobster, Stenko, travels with a young girl on a mission to reconcile with his radical environmentalist son, whose demands for carbon neutrality take a chilling turn. As their paths converge with the Picketts, the line between hope and a cruel hoax blurs, forcing Joe to confront whether the young girl is truly April or if his family is ensnared in a deadly deception.