Page 14 - ATA 29 JULY,2015

PEOPLE & ARTS A29
Wednesday 29 July 2015

‘Badlands’ is intriguing stand-alone novel from C.J. Box

OLINE H. COGDILL in this new frontier anxious that crime and the drug on his early morning news- This photo provided by cour-
Associated Press to start as chief investiga- trade are out of control. paper route. The balance tesy of Minotaur Books shows
The new Wild West, in tor for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff The town’s infrastructure between Kyle’s emotional the cover of the book, “Bad-
which a hamlet becomes of Bakken County. But the from housing to restaurants story and Cassie’s percep- lands,” by author C.J. Box.
a boomtown because of progress that assures Cassie to law enforcement is woe- tive detective work adds
its oil-rich fields, makes a her new high-paying job fully unprepared. heft to the novel. Associated Press
sturdy background for C.J. comes with problems. As Cassie looks into murders Box deftly shows an area
Box’s intriguing new stand- A few years ago, Grims- related to rival gangs and under siege by progress,
alone novel. tad was an economically corruption within the sher- where the prairie now
Taking another break from depressed North Dakota iff’s department, 12-year- “roared” with trains and
his best-selling series about town “dying a slow death,” old Kyle Westergaard un- tankers. “Millions of bar-
Wyoming game warden its most notable feature wittingly is in the middle of rels of oil bound for every
Joe Pickett, Box delivers an the below-zero winters. But the drug war when he finds corner of the country.” The
enthralling thriller in “Bad- a burgeoning oil industry a duffel bag filled with drugs author’s strength in creat-
lands,” the story of a once- has brought in a few thou- and money. Kyle, a special- ing well-rounded charac-
quiet area unprepared for sand workers, who have needs child who lives with ters shaped by their envi-
its rapid growth. too much money and idle his alcoholic mother and rons and their own moral
Cassandra “Cassie” Dewell, time on their hands. Grim- her low-life boyfriend, finds codes again shines in
last seen in Box’s terrify- stad’s unbridled popula- the bag after he witnesses “Badlands.”q
ing “The Highway,” arrives tion growth also means a fatal car accident while