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This is one of my favorites in the Joe Pickett series. It's set in Yellowstone National Park, where I worked for a year in 1997, and so I felt more connected to the setting than a Washingtonian normally world to a series that takes place exclusively in Wyoming.

But beyond that, it's just got a great plot, great characters and great tensions. Some highlights:

� The legal ambiguity surrounding Yellowstone's tiny "Zone Of Death," where a person can kill anyone inside without fear of prosecution, is fascinating because it is rooted in fact. (The legal loophole has since been closed.)

� Lawyer Clay McCann is one of author C.J. Box's more fascinating villains, because he's both evil and a victim. By turns, he's stupid, arrogant, shrewd, sad, a step ahead and a step way behind. And he's not even the worst of the bad guys in this movie.

� Pickett's relationship with park ranger Judy Demming (and, to some extent, her husband Lars) is a refreshing dynamic � colleagues with a healthy mutual respect forged by mutually shared values, and that certain surprising, scary, sexy something extra. Box shows the characters and the readers alike refreshing respect by treating us all like adults and not forcing the action in a predictable direction.

� Box's story usually include a fascinating history or environmental lesson, and bio-mining � the lesson of the day in "Free Fire" � is especially compelling. Could those rare and precious hot springs contain biological properties that might help cure disease and prevent poor health? It's a mind-boggling possibility that feels tantalizingly real.

� The culture of opposing workers and year-rounders at Yellowstone is interesting, for their uneasy alliances and deeply held suspicions. And yet the reader senses a shared love amid the hatred for this one-of-a-kind place on earth. It's a strange and absorbing tension.

What else can I say? All of the above is wrapped up in an compelling and fast-paced tale that somehow makes plenty of room for rich character development and longing lingering on the unique scenery along the way. Throw in a few shocking twists, a crazy finale that somehow manages not to run away with itself and Box's usual three-notches-above-the genre-norm prose, and "Free Fire" is a mystery that satisfies on all levels ... by being much more than a mystery.