SARATOGA — C.J. Box’s famous “Joe Pickett” series is now 24 novels deep. That makes it a rich trove of trivia. That trivia in turn supports a fun little fund-raiser for the Saratoga Museum, one that draws fans from all over the country.
Box, who lives in Carbon County, has always had a soft spot for the museums of the area of his home in southern Wyoming.
That’s why you’ll find him at the Saratoga Museum in late summer as part of the annual “Sleuthing with Joe Pickett” trivia event, signing books for dedicated fans who come from Wyoming, Texas, North Carolina and beyond.
Box offers a very cool auction item at the annual trivia contest — the rare opportunity to get your name in one of his “Joe Pickett” books.
The winning bid comes with just a few caveats. Winners don’t get to choose what book they are in. They don’t get to choose the role they play. And they don’t even get to choose their character’s fate.
They could be a seedy criminal signing a fake name at a hotel or maybe die a gruesome death in an opening scene, never to be seen again.
Yet, people are willing to pay big bucks to get their name in a C.J. Box book.
Top dollar for this auction item has been as much as $25,000 at the various events where Box has offered it. At this year’s “Sleuthing with Joe Pickett” on Aug. 3, it went for a bargain, $2,001.
Box, in addition to Sleuthing with Joe Pickett, often drops by museums in the area to sign books. He clearly loves Wyoming, and particularly loves Cowboy State history.
Signed copies of his books are stocked at the Carbon County Museum in Rawlins, Grand Encampment Museum, Saratoga Museum and the Hanna Museum. Box sometimes even sets up in person at the museums to sign books, meet fans and draw visitors.
“It’s terrific that the museums promote my books, and I promote the museums as well,” Box said. “My wife, Laurie, and I own a small ranch between Saratoga and Encampment, and we’ve been very involved with the communities in the valley for quite a few years.”
About That Next Book
Box’s latest Joe Pickett book on the shelves is “Three-Inch Teeth,” but the book he was most excited to talk about during the event is the next one in the series, “Battle Mountain.”
“I have yet to submit it to the publisher, but it’s going to be coming out Feb. 25,” Box told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s more of a Nate Romanowski book than a Joe Pickett book, and most of it takes place in this valley — the upper North Platte River Valley.”
Romanowksi wants revenge on the guy who killed his wife in the previous book and has discovered that he’s encamped at Battle Mountain. But even as he’s closing in on Battle Mountain, his friend Joe Pickett is closing in on the area, too, for reasons of his own.
There’s bound to be an epic collision, Box affirms with a twinkle in his eye, one that’s set in a very real location in the North Plate River Valley.
“Battle Mountain” takes its name from a legendary fight between 700 angry Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors and Mountain Man Jim Baker who, at just 22, took charge of perhaps a dozen trappers, saving their lives.
All but one man lived to tell their own Thermopylae-like, Wyoming tale that’s every bit as riveting as the tale about legendary frontiersman Hugh Glass surviving a grizzly.
“The new book, ‘Battle Mountain,’ has to do with an annual, conclave gathering that happens every year that very few people know about,” Box said. “And I’m putting it in the book, but I’m changing it.
“In real life, it’s a group called the Conquistadors. There’s so many jets at this thing that they park little jets underneath the wings of big jets. And I did, a long time ago, hear that one bomb would wipe out the U.S. military-industrial complex if it happened on this ranch where they gather.”
Box has changed all the appropriate names and details, but has used the idea of the gathering, which serves as a kind of retreat for military-industrial complex members, as inspiration for his next book. The military-industrial complex refers to a tight-knit community of defense contractors and military leaders, whose members exert substantial political influence.
“I always start with an issue or controversy or something in the news,” Box said. “And then I research the heck out of it. And then the way I always look at it is, how can I tell the story about this real subject in a page-turning way? That’s how I always start with a subject or topic I’ve always been interested in.”
Alex Freeman, left, with his mom, Deborah Underwood, came out West for a bucket-list adventure. It became an even bigger adventure when they found out CJ Box would be at the Sleuthing With Joe Pickett event for Saratoga Museum. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Koby Shell with a signed copy of a C.J. Box book she is taking home to give a friend who is a big fan of Box's book. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
A Sleuthing With Joe Pickett hat signed by CJ Box. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
C.J. Box talks to a fan before the Sleuthing with Joe Picket Event for Saratoga Museum during the cocktail hour. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
Sleuths From All Over
Box has long had a habit of using local names and places in his books, and that has particularly endeared him to his many Wyoming fans.
“Three-Inch Teeth,” for example, had 15 local names in it, including First Lady Jenny Gordon, saddle bronc rider Brody Cress and cowgirl and former Cheyenne Frontier Days Dandy Peaches Tyrrell.
But Box is also loved by people from across the nation and around the world. That’s readily apparent from the guest list for the annual Sleuthing with Joe Pickett event in Saratoga. They’ve come from Georgia, Texas, Illinois, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, and North Carolina.
“It always amazes me that they’ll come all this way,” Box said. “One guy told me, ‘I traveled 1,000 miles to come here for this.’ It’s amazing to me that they even find out about this, much less show up.”
This year’s thousand-mile-plus guests were from North Carolina. They included Alex Freeman, who had brought his mom, Deborah Underwood on a bucket-list adventure out West.
“We had talked about going West for years,” Freeman told Cowboy State Daily. “So, we finally got everything together and did this small tour of Wyoming and ended up down here in Saratoga.”
Their trip became an even bigger bucket-list item after they discovered a flyer advertising Sleuthing with Joe Pickett with none other than Box among the attendees of the event’s cocktail hour.
While there, Underwood also bumped into fellow North Carolinian and Box fan, Koby Shell.
Shell and her husband were visiting family friends, Dennis and Cathy Farber, at the Aspen Alley Ranch near Saratoga. Farber, a distant relative of one of the game wardens Box once hung out with, is a huge fan of the author as well.
Shell’s team didn’t win the trivia contest, but she was happy, nonetheless. She’d first learned about Box and the Joe Pickett series from an 80-year-old friend of hers in North Carolina, and she now had some pretty special souvenirs to take back home to her friend.
“I bought a book and a hat for her,” Kobe said, with a big, beaming smile. “Both signed by C.J. Box!”
Even Box Doesn’t Know All The Answers
Saratoga’s Joe Pickett trivia contest is so tough, Box told Cowboy State Daily, that even he can’t answer some of the questions that his fans get right at these events.
“They get some really smart, local people to come up with the trivia questions,” he said. “I know I wouldn’t win this contest because I’ve stuck around with my wife, and we’ve sat there looking at each other trying to remember.”
There’s a small prize for winers of the trivia event — $300 to split six ways at a full table. But, for the fans who attend this event and just can’t get enough of Box’s books, it’s more about the bragging rights than anything else. It’s all about getting to say you knew the most trivia at an event Box himself attends.
As soon as the books that will be featured in the contest are announced, the fans go to work, re-reading them all, eagerly boning up on everything that happened in them.
This year’s winners, Diane Carpenter and her sister Shelly Riester, from Colorado, had their own little secret strategy. Carpenter plugs in audio books while she’s knitting or doing other chores.
She even listened to all of the trivia event’s books on her five-hour trip to the event. That’s how Carpenter and Riester were able to answer such questions as “What rifle did Joe use to shoot the injured elk in Storm Watch?” And “How many shots were fired at Joe at the beginning of the book?”
“What car did the Hungarians use in Shadows Reel?”
“Why did they want the photo album?”
“Who was Sheriff Tibbs of Twelve Sleep County having an affair with?”
If those answers easily come to mind for you, perhaps you’re ready to be a contestant on the next Sleuthing with Joe Pickett event in Saratoga.
Competition is tough, but the event offers the rare chance to get your name in Box’s next book, while sipping Buffalo Trace, his favorite bourbon, and getting to meet the author himself. All of which goes well with the mountain adventures and the free hot springs that come with any trip to Saratoga.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
