The subtitle may sound a bit misleading - while of the stories are set in Wyoming (or are related to it in some way), only 4 of the 10 are actually set in the Joe Pickett series.

The collection opens with One-Car Bridge which deals with one of the absentee-owner's huge farms in Wyoming. Except that this owner has his own ideas of what is possible - and does not care about anyone else but himself. Joe Pickett's attempts to help the manager of the ranch... and that ends up in a way noone expects.

Pirates of Yellowstone shows what happens when people are tricked into moving halfway across the world and left without a job.

The End of Jim and Ezra gets us back in time with two beaver trappers who get trapped into the mountains by the snows and need to share a cabin for the winter. Having roommates is never easy... try it when you cannot leave the room.

The Master Falconer is the second Pickett story although as the title makes it clear if you had read the series so far, it is really a Nate Romanowski story. When the Saudis show up in the mountain to try to convince Nate to help them with something, Nate is not amused - either by them not accepting the 'no' or by what follows next. The end of the story made me laugh - Nate is always an interesting character.

Every Day Is a Good Day on the River starts as a nice fishing story which ends up being anything but - guides may be seen as part of the river but they are people and people had pasts (and sometimes futures).

Pronghorns of the Third Reich is one of the stories based on a real story. Back in 1936, a Wyoming photographer captures and put a few pronghorn antelopes on a plane and takes them to zoos around the country, including sending a few on the Hindenburg to the Berlin Zoo. Apparently this did happen. Box takes that story creates a story around it by swapping who actually distributed the animals - a man who used to have a partner but decided to do this one thing on his own. The result was one very wealthy man and one who ended up in poverty. Now, years later, the descendant of the cheated man decides to get even - and things get out of control quickly.

In Dull Knife Joe Pickett decides to do whatever it takes to try to find justice for a woman who is found dead in a frozen lake - especially when he finally learns who left her there. Let's just say that falling on the ice while naked in temperatures under 0 is never a good idea.

Le sauvage noble (The Noble Savage) is the only story that does not take place in the state of Wyoming - it takes us to Paris where the Wild Wild West show in Disneyland had hired real Indians. Add women who fall for the exotic and the clash of cultures and things get a bit complicated. In his introduction Box mentions that you may want to take a shower after reading this story and he is not off mark on that - humanity can be really really weird sometimes and noone in this story comes out as a nice person - or anywhere near a good person.

On the other hand, Blood Knot, the shortest story in the collection, is all about the passing of generations and the love for Nature - and exactly because it is so short, it works. It is sweet and heartbreaking and if you have good memories with or about your grandparents and it does not make you think of them, I will be very surprised.

The closing story, Shots Fired: A Requiem for Ander Esti, is the last Joe Pickett story and we also see another character we had met before - Bryce Pendergast (the guy who was sprayed with bear spray by Joe in "Breaking Point" when the warden was attacked). But even if Bryce becomes important for the story, the main character is really Ander Esti, the Basque sheepherder who everyone likes to hire - and who everyone likes. Until one day he shoots at a car out of nowhere and Joe goes to investigate and ends up in trouble as usual.

Overall an enjoyable collection even though there no really outstanding stories - they are mostly good stories though. If you are reading the series of Joe Pickett novels, you can skip this collection and if you had never read the author, the collection is probably not a good place to start - I like his style in the longer works more. ( )

This one was somewhat uneven for me. Some of the stories really held my attention (Le Sauvage Noble in particular) but others just felt too flat for me. Interestingly, I've never read any of his Joe Pickett novels...and those stories were the ones I liked least. Is Pickett always so preachy of a character? Because, especially in the last story, he just comes across as holier than thou towards the "bad guys" which I could see grating in a longer format. ( )

An excellent collection of short stories-- many of them centered around C.J. Box's main character Joe Pickett. Nate Romanowski is the main focus of “The Master Falconer” though Joe Pickett does make a brief appearance....my favorite story of the collection. Nate gets mad and he gets even. Other stories are fantastic, too. ( )

Read a couple of stories, they were OK.

C.J. Box does it again. Shots Fired was one of her best. Is is mr Pickett at his best. I could not put this book down. a+ ( )