Reviews

Nowhere to Run by C.J. Box

cgcang's review against another edition

5.0

I'm afraid 2020 is going to be the year of C.J. Box for me.

I had read and reviewed his first Joe Pickett book, Open Season, back in May last year. It took me 3 months to move on to Savage Run and another 4 months before I read Winterkill.

It went downhill from there and here we are.

Nowhere To Run is a very solid entry. It's neatly written. It has this trademark rural, natural feel that Pickett novels give off and I'm a sucker for that. The pacing is a bit slower than Below Zero which isn't a bad thing because Below Zero, despite the fast-paced action, wasn't Box's strongest.

Nowhere To Run however, has some real bite. It has tension and violence, character development, thrilling chase sequences and quite unexpectedly, it turns out the main themes of the book were societal and moral all along, which means good writing on C.J. Box's part.

Good writing, at the end of the day, is what we're all looking for.

r_lind's review against another edition

4.0

Part of this book is in season 2 of the series.

liberrydude's review against another edition

4.0

Fast paced action as Joe pursues two survivalist brothers in the mountains of Wyoming. These guys are more than a match for Joe and he is lucky to escape from them. But Joe being Joe returns to confront them in the standard moral showdown, upholding the law. However, these guys have seriously been screwed by the government and despite their contempt for the law you end up feeling some sympathy for them. You get to learn a new word too-wendigo-a creature from Indian mythology with cannibalistic tendencies. It's thought the brothers are wendigos by the local folks. There's also the issue of a missing female runner and Olympian hopeful, who OBTW, is the daughter of the developer who screwed the brothers out of their land back in Michigan.

ozreus's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

holl3640's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

mylhibug's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

4.0

seanpatricklittle's review against another edition

4.0

After you've written as many Joe Pickett novels as CJ Box has, it's important to keep them fresh. NOWHERE TO RUN succeeds on this front. By starting off the novel with the "bad guys" and putting Pickett deep into a high stakes game of cat-and-mouse, it's not a slow build mystery to a big a conclusion like his other books.

However, Box is smart enough to know that readers are not stupid, and that bad guys are rarely bad guys without a reason. Figuring out why these guys are the way they are is half the fun.

This was a worthy addition to Joe Pickett's considerable legacy.

leirben's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

jackelyn_kjerstie's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

whatmeaganreads's review against another edition

5.0

I don't think my heart has raced this much from anticipation and fear from a book in a good long while. It's insane for me to grasp some of the ideas that are tossed around in this book that was written back in 2016 yet here we are in 2021 and those ideas are coming to light. Such a good book with a tale that will have to devouring the pages.