The Highway by C.J. Box

 

Kerry Hammond reviews the latest C.J. Box thriller, The Highway...

The Highway by C.J. Box is a dark thriller featuring Cody Hoyt, an alcoholic former police investigator who is pulled into hunting a serial killer on Montana's remote highways (available July 30, 2013).
 

I’m a big fan of C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett series and was very excited to read one of his standalone novels.  I would still consider it a standalone, although a few of the characters, including teen sisters Danielle and Gracie, that appear in this book also appeared in Back of Beyond, published just a couple of years ago. Specifically, Cody Hoyt, a police investigator in Montana. Since Box creates such memorable characters, I’m not surprised that Cody made another appearance.

In The Highway, Cody is struggling with his recent sobriety and has been kicked off the force for planting evidence, a crime of which he is clearly guilty. When he admits to planting the evidence, it sounds like a no brainer to the reader that Cody is a dirty cop. However, once Box outlines Cody’s reasoning and tells the story from his point of view, you may not be entirely sure that your original conclusions are correct. The author reminds you that things are sometimes gray rather than black and white.

You can read the rest of this review over at Criminal Element.