Below Zero

Perhaps some minor spoilers ahead (depending on your sensitivity).

At the start of the ninth Joe Pickett tale, Joe is still a game warden without portfolio working directly for the governor as needed and otherwise dispatched wherever his boss is short of manpower. As a result Pickett spends a lot of time away from home.
In typical C.J. Box fashion, this story is told in multiple threads.
The story starts with a brutal and seemingly senseless murder. That introduces us to the two bad guys. They are accompanied by a 14-year old girl – not a captive exactly, but not really free either. She is horrified by what happened.
Then action shifts to Joe Pickett. He is hunting down a miscreant nicknamed “The Mad Archer” who has been going around putting arrows into animals pretty much at random. No sooner does he arrest this nutjob asshole, than he gets a call from home. It seems someone claiming to be his adopted daughter April has contacted his daughter Sheridan and wants help. The problem is, they buried April six years ago. It soon becomes apparent that this girl, whoever she is, knows a lot about his family. More ominously, she seems to have some connection to a series of oddball murders stretching across several states.
From that point, the hunt is on. Joe Pickett needs to catch up with the killers and rescue the girl. As the story unfolds Joe enlists the aid of his deadly friend Nate Romanowski. He even gets his daughter Sheridan to lend a hand (Joe isn't good at teenage text-talk). At first he is reluctant to bring in the FBI due to sad past experience with their trigger-happy ways. However, he eventually has to contact them because only they have the resources to prevent the body count from rising. The local FBI boss gets very interested when they determine that there is a Chicago mob connection.
Things get exciting as the hunt continues with plenty of action. Joe has to get “Western” a few times. We get car chases, helicopter chases, motorcycle chases, and much more. The plot shifts direction several times, and as things move along we learn the true motivation of the villains and at least some of the girl's backstory. (Cannot say much more without giving things away. But, I don't think it is much of a spoiler to say things get violent and not everyone survives.)
As I have come to expect, there is a nice little C.J. Box twist at the end.
Good book.