Ep. 525: Game Wardens and Grizzlies with CJ Box

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No, it's that's that's my name. I should be a journalist. And by the way, thanks for having me here. And when I worked for newspapers, I was all my stories were by Chuck Box. And then I moved to a little town in Wyoming called Saratoga, Wyoming, and I went to a ranch party and a rancher once said, man, we love that that crazy name of yours. You know, because it's on the back of a chuck wagon.

I never like to be a cowboy poet named chuck Box.

So the next issue of the paper it was C. J. Boss.

So you actually had to change your name away from a name that would have been a great stage name.

Well or or it sounds like a place for utensils on the back of a chuck Yeah, but.

Out of Saratoga, Wyoming, Like it's all yeah, it's all too cute.

Like I said, I'm I'm wagon wheel. Yeah, but you were born in Casper, that's right. That's right.

We'll get into your bio, but uh, needless say, uh, best selling author, New York Times Best that's not needless to say. I'm gonna say that with pride, New York Times bestselling author, author of thirty books, that's right. And in how many? In how many in the current series that you're working on now, because this is your brand new release.

That's right. That is the twenty fourth Joe Pickett novel.

Yeah, so we're we're here celebrating three Inch Teeth, a Joe Pickett novel, which is the what number.

Again, twenty fourth? Yeah?

Do you know that I became familiar with you. I had heard your name, but I hadn't read your books until it was pointed out to me by a bunch of people that you mentioned my name in one of your book.

That's right, that's right. I brought that for you as well.

Yeah, and you know, I don't know. I was. I don't know how. I was moderately happy.

Shit's good.

I thought I was sick. I would open it up, thinking maybe I'm here. Maybe he really Yeah, like I'm a hero, I'm widely celebrated. But you did, like what you do with everything you do, is you treated it, you know, very fairly. It was. It was a sparse mentioned, but I took note good.

Good. Yeah.

My father in law, who reads all of your books, he didn't catch it. He loves your books. I'm like, you know what, this is the last time he visited you. Tell me, you know you always read every time a CJ. Box book comes out, he reads it, and so I knew you read it. And I said, you didn't have noticed anything peculiar in that book, did you? I was like, okay, so you might not be your closest reading Well. Yeah, the background topic of the new book, three Inch Teeth.

Well, that is something I've tried to do since the very first book. For one thing, I never set out to say, you know, the world is just waiting for a wyoming game Warden series.

You know.

I wrote one book, a book called Open Season, but the issue in that was the endangered species law, and it was kind of based on a real the discovery of blackfooted ferrets nearing a Metitzi wyoming on the Pitchfork. Yeah. I was a reporter at that time, and I thought it was so interesting to me, not that because I'd grown up with little posters around the picture drawing if you see this the animal, call this number. Yes.

Yeah.

They thought they might be extinct.

It was like beware if you're going to go prairie dog hunting, yes, right right, Yeah, and then became.

A little wanted posters for blackfooted ferrets.

Yeah. But then when they were discovered calling outside of Metzi, I found out when I was a reporter, nearly everybody around there knew they were there. No one ever made the call and I thought, that is a kind of fascinating New West Western story. I want to retell it in this book. And uh, the protagonist was originally going to be a sheriff and then a journalist, which is what I was, and then I made him a game warden because I was doing ride alongs with game wardens.

Wow.

So since the very beginning, I've tried to have issues that you know, resonate among I always thought, if I could, if people around me where I live in Wyoming think the books are authentic, that was success, and luckily it's worked out a lot better than that. But so, yeah, the corner crossing thing, that case is right in my backyard. My wife was called to be on the jury.

How did she do?

She didn't get called?

Did she make it to the judge?

She knew a ranch owner, and she knew the foreman, and she knew the game warden. But we're involved in it, so she was gone.

One of these was she trying to get on?

She really wanted to get on.

I was gonna say a conflict of interest might be that my husband might later write a book about this.

That did comebody.

I actually need to be here because my husband's going to write all about which would be like the big best seller. So I want to make sure I'm here to give him like the scoop judge be like you could take off.

But it's such a fascinating it's it's one of those it's so I can see both sides and I'm not kidding, and I try to portray it that way.

Yeah, so you had formal training as a journalists then too, so you're able to apply.

That as formal training as a journalist can get. Yeah, which is I went to college, that's it, and became a journalist and yeah, worked for a little weekly newspapers.

Got it.

This is how I see uh novels come to be Right, you're driving down the road, you're listening to the radio, and you just go that sounds like a case for Joel Picket.

It is, or something over here in the post office where everybody goes, or talking to the local game warden.

You know.

I get lots of things like that.

Well, we're gonna we're gonna hit on a couple of things. I got two more things I'm gonna mention. One's a question just up top. You gotta have because like living in Wyoming. You gotta have people come up to you. You probably can't go anywhere without getting a novel idea right from people at the grocery store.

I yeah, I feel like I'm like a predator almost.

You know.

It's like that old saying, you know, if you if you walk around with the hammer, everything looked like a nail, you know. I like, I see my wife's hay hook in the barn, I think, oh god, that's a great murder way. So yeah, it's pretty easy.

And people come up and be like, you know what you ought to be writing about? Is?

I get a little bit too much of that atal And sometimes I'll say, why don't you write that book?

Idea is so good? I'll let you have the honor.

When I mentioned, uh, what I mentioned when I the first uh novel I've read here is a Dark Sky? And and uh that was that one where you mentioned me and media and I was joking about the What it was is there's this kind of like sort of a rather unlikable Silicon Valley CEO who has what was the Steve two point oher or what the hell's his name?

Yes, yeah, Steve two point.

He's got one of them. You know he's got like a goofy tech name, kind of annoying. Well, he gets hopped up on watching me eater and decides he wants to go on out. So it's very like Zuckerberg. It's like very Zuckerberg. Ye, like when Zuckerberg announced some year that he was gonna only eat stuff he killed. It was like real Zuckerberg. And I was sort of like the through the the inspiration. You know, it's better than being an inspiration for the villain.

Yeah right right.

Uh, Okay, now you gotta hang tight. You can talk about anything you want, but we got to talk about a couple of things. Okay, they're gonna come back to you hardcore and.

Feel free to chime in whenever you want.

Okay.

Uh. One problem we have is we declared that we weren't gonna talk about my old time saying, Oh I'll bring you up speed.

No that's not true. We should talk about it all the time.

I wanted to invent an old saying, so I came up with based off pick and pole beans, I came up with a fresh set of eyes always finds more beans, Meaning if you put like a new person into a situation, they're gonna find right, Okay, got it a reality that was hidden from others, And we talked about it so much that we kept talking about it, and people would send in different versions. And now we've even got listeners

No, it's supposed to be a limited edition thing, so get them all.

I will say, you might break into the vegan market there, Steve.

I know Sydney like holding up jerky sticks.

Sydney used it the other day, Oh sh un ironically but she did the version where you sort of trail off after eyes.

Yeah, there's a name for that. Do you remember the word is no?

I don't remember.

And you looked that up as a writer, he might be an interest in you know, there's a there's a name for when you only say part of saying and let it trail off look at up.

I don't know. I've never heard. I've never heard of a name for that. And I just put dot dot dot yep.

So if I say to you fresh set eyes.

Dot dot dot, there's a name for that.

And I don't even know if she herds of a feather.

I don't know if she was doing it consciously, because it didn't register with me. It just sounded very natural when she said a fresh set highs and like three or four seconds I realized that she was going with the beans saying, and.

I was podcast listener.

I was taken aback.

I don't know if I'm pronouncing this properly.

You might have the right things. I remember it being hard to pronounces. She's Corinth.

Of all the poetic devices you could have chosen.

I'm gonna move on while you look for it.

This fascinating.

Here's another T shirt. This is a few so we covered off on this. This is a future T shirt design. Where we were talking, we're talking about what we used to like to draw when we were little kids. And I drew two things. I drew amphibious tank battles. I like to draw those when I was a little kid, and it was like like tanks that somehow floated assaulting a beach. And I like to draw large Native American encampments with dozens and dozens of teepees stretching into the horizon.

He uh no disrespect. He couldn't move.

No matter what he did, he couldn't move away from hogs. And he kept his drawings going even into high school. And so he was talking about I could He said, I think it's at my mom's house. As he's explaining what he used, a common theme he would explore in his drawings as a young man, and then promptly his mom sent a photo of the picture, and I asked Clay if I could have it, and he sent it to us for the studio. So it's a future man. I want.

I want Clay to explain how that gun, the construction of that gun works like where the sling is hood.

I got questions about that.

It looks like when you know, like if they're making sci fi movie props and they take a squirt gun and they just attach some other things to it.

It's a future man being charged by a wild hog, but he's got the drop on.

It, and he has a claw hand as well.

Well. He's like, he's otherworldly. He's not of this planet.

I can tell by the musculature.

He's ripped. Yeah, he's ripped and strapped and he's being chased by a razor.

He's in trouble if he doesn't pull that trigger pretty quick.

I don't is there a trigger on it?

Am?

I just fire when he thinks I want this to be Remember.

That t shirt he did of the ice age hunter doing the grip and grim with the saber tooth tiger, sabertooth cat. What do you call those things? Scimitar cat, sabertooth cat where it's like a shirt but it's just a rectangular box like yay, right kind of cross or stern them and then that that wonderful picture will just be in that box.

I can't wait.

I don't think they should make two many of them either.

Could we also just do prints of these? I mean, like that you could hang on your wall.

I don't know that was from nineteen ninety seven.

Oh, we should have like a calendar of Clay's old art.

I don't know how many pieces he's got. I know about two and all. He's got two and one. Can't go on the calendar. As I explained earlier about what is Oh the other thing I wanted to touch on, but I can't, like, uh, something that happened this weekend, But maybe I should there's like some little more. Are you giving me a look like there's a there's a moratorium on talking about this?

I think I just don't know.

Yeah, I'll give you the most cursing. Me and Yanni and my three kids and his two kids. The dog, Yeah, went out cat hunting and his uh dog went off a cliff.

He's still alive, And when we.

Found it, I didn't think it was gonna live. Kids are all crying blood all over.

I still don't understand why I got that.

Underach message because we were on we were on a steep canyon and it was snowing and this track was brand new, and the dog went down into the bottom of the canyon. I think it jumped the cat, and the cat went up the other side into a cliff band so, and then all of a sudden it's right and also dead quiet.

I guess what I'm saying is, why did you not have you honest?

I have his contact info. Hear me out, dead quiet, and then he gets a trade symbol at the bottom of a cliff and an odd line of travel. So the dog's zigzag and zigzag and zigzag, and then it seems like he went a really long ways in a very straight line to a tread symbol. We tell all the kids to hang tight by the snowbill.

This is on's on his GPS, so you can see see on a screen the line of travel of the dog.

Tell all the kids stay put, and we go down to the bottom of the canyon, climb up the other side, and find it at the fourth of the cliff, and make a plan that he puts it in his backpack and he's gonna go a mile and I'm gonna go back up and get the kids and circle around and pick them up on a snowmill trail. When he doesn't show up, I had his phone number, but I didn't have his I was on my inReach and didn't have his inReach number, gotcha, trying to find out what was going down.

All worked out the phill bleep him saying that, yeah, I don't want to tell Yanni's story for him.

Blood all over.

That's how you want damp Yeah to be continued. Kids are scared, blood all over. It's snowing, crying.

Didn't know where Yannie was. He didn't show up at the show in the place.

Phone rings and Joe Pickett's office.

Yep, Oh, that might be a good setup.

I like that.

Hey, you know, have you you know you ought to work into one of your books. Is all these people getting stuck in vault toilets trying to get their phones and stuff out of there.

I like that idea. I like that a lot. I have never thought about that.

Well, little comic good part.

Yeah, it could just be sort of like the intro.

He had just finished getting the woman out of the vault toilet when he heard a crackle on the radio.

Yes, I've got some outhouse high jinks in this current book. Two women trapped inside of it of an outhouse in it not in the vault and Green Rancher pounding on the door.

But they're not stuck in the vault.

No, no, not yet.

I feel like your guy. I feel like Pickett needing to help someone who dropped an Apple watch into a vault toilet and crawledon there to get it. At a fishing access site. One, it's just a there's a it's a epidemic, right.

It helped raise awareness about this.

Yes, a couple of that one. I usually don't.

You don't tell me that I should just write my own book. You know how the author I took a class in graduate school with the author. You ever hear of an author? Chris Offitt? No, he wrote Kentucky straight. He's like a Kentucky writer. Uh. He wrote he was a novelist, but then wrote a book about his family, wrote a memoir called I don't know what it was called wrote a memoir and his family is livid.

Oh, yes, as they are.

His response was, you should write your own version is what happened? Yes, I'm not stopping you tell the world.

That's the problem with a memoir. You can only do one, although some people keep doing them.

No, I always get worried when a writer. I always get worried for a writer who starts out with their life story mm hmm, because that's tough to follow up.

It is, and a guy. I've known quite a few authors who just came out with that memoir and then struggled and struggled and tried to come up with something for book two.

I always get worried about writers get too big, like especially in that situation where you do your memoir and you get a big advance, like a big big advance because they're really excited about your life story, and then it doesn't earn out, and then and then you're like, you know, then the thing is like, well, maybe I'll do a book about you know, business.

You know.

I mean, it's it's just a bad path.

Man.

Uh.

Those beans shirts are on sale now, correct, my buddy, not because this is a listener email. My buddy and I are air traffic controllers. I can picture Joe pick it up in the air traffic tower.

He hates planes.

My buddyne a air traffic controllers. In our particular tower, we prefer to have all the transmissions over the loud speaker, as opposed to wearing a headset with earpieces. I can picture that the problem as he goes on to say, is that sometimes the other shift cranks the speaker up to eleven. So every now and then, the first call of our shift comes blasting over the speaker so loudly that I'll hear just loud static and miss a call sign, pilot request, or other pertinent information.

It's getting thick.

When this happens. I need someone in the back to tell me what the pilot said while I turned the speaker down. He goes on to say, so my proximity to the speaker hindered my ability to hear the full message. Or oh, he's trying to float his own old time a lot.

I didn't know.

I didn't pre read this. A lot of.

People have done that, betted it, but.

I didn't read just he just took the bait.

No, I just took like I'd have so much trust in Krin. Now, Steve's got a crisis on his hand, all this set up, and here I am stuck, and you don't even know if his own damn, this saying.

Better than.

I know exactly where this was going.

But it's a great saying. Dude, you're gonna dismiss it and then you're gonna think about it.

I don't. I don't think so.

Yes, I'll tell you where. I'll tell you what the applications are.

I could even into the beans.

Being too near could make things unclear. Now, fresh set of eyes always find more beans. Has accounting, right, has relevance, and accounting.

There's also just great imagery that goes along with.

It has relevance and law enforcement. Being too near could make things unclear. I think has relevance in parenting when it comes to diagnosing health issues. I thought it was going to be more literal, like like, oh no, my kids just like that.

I was too.

You just fall asleep out of nowhere. He's always been like that, right or no, No, he's just like that. I don't know what that's all about. Always been like that. And some might be like, I think that kid's got a major problem, but the parents too near, which makes it unclear.

That's like kind of a riff of like missing the forest for the truth.

Exactly what.

I thought it was a more literal saying too near to hear, and then it could be that's the saying no no. I mean I thought that's where he's going with it. So then you know, at outboard motor there's all sorts of very narrowly constructed situations in which that would make sense.

Just because it's loud doesn't mean it's legible.

M Yeah, I like that too. But I also see this being applicable in relationships.

Remember John Wayne and said a big mouth don't make a big man.

Didn't he have a big mouth like the engineer?

The engineered to make things unclear? You got a buddy, yeah, and clearly your buddy's husband is a lunatic. The only person that doesn't realize it is your buddy.

Yeah.

Being too near it makes things unclear. What episode number are we on? Five twenty? Okay, so apologies that we're going back to episode four seventeen.

But speaking of air traffic controllers.

Speaking of air traffic controllers, we had a person on the podcast, cj Uh who was a biologist with APHIS Animal Plant Inspection Services. They do a lot of predator control, but a lot of other things that people don't know about, like, for instance, keeping stuff off airport runways, so wildlife control inside airport circles, geese, deer, whatever, deterrent not just lethal

Snarge is just.

Detritus goo and then you try to find out what the snarge was from. Uh. Anyways, A dead goose just took down a so a medical helicopter. There was fatalities how many three? Oh do we know that?

Three or three or four?

A medical helicopter crash in Oklahoma with multiple fatalities and they recovered a dead goose out of that helicopter. I think that was what she's saying with the number one bird, right.

Yeah, I think so. I think it is goose. Yeah, And I know that there have been like a number of there were landings. I was at the Hudson.

Flight nurse and a paramedic all killed in a bird strike.

Huh yeah, so it's serious ship.

Someone wrote in about this. I feel like we should I want to do this, but I left my drink coasters on my desk.

Oh, like you would read out what's on your drink coasters?

Well, yeah, because my drink coasters have are they crucial to this?

You can add those to the list, or you're just saying you don't remember what all of them are.

It's about bird names. Cale's favorite sect. Just how graphics and bird names are. Well, I'll bring I'll bring them next time we record.

I like the record to show I have nothing wrong with bird names.

No, I know. That's the problem, is like you don't have any problem with bird names.

Yeah, old names, new names.

I like. Great.

But it's that you have expressed that you've expressed feeling that there's been a lot of time wasted on the thing that is not an issue.

Right, And it's hard for me to draw the parallel between the change of a bird name and the distruction of the United States Constitution and the downfall of democracy.

As we might come in a little hot it up. We'll pick it up when I have my drink coasters.

My drink coasters are let's read the guy's note.

Okay, in support of Steve topic renaming birds and support of Steve, here's an idea. If we must rename birds to fit some social justice narrative, let's double down on the borderline not safe for workplace bird names that already exist. And he points out the great tit, Yeah, the blue footed booty, Booby, the wood cock, the dick Sissel, and then a name Steve. I have drink coasters at my neighbor pottery, Pat gave me for my birthday. I think a my birthday, my birthday, and it's a coaster and

How many are there?

I wouldn't send my kid to school with these drink coasters. I would go over if your kid, If your kids just sit, If your kid did sit down at their desk and place a coaster down and then set their drinking, it could.

Be an edifying moment for the teacher.

Mm hmmm, mm hmm.

And he'd say something like, what type of cocks do you enjoy them?

All?

I mean, that's the exact type of thing I would have been doing in school.

Uh, let's do one.

More, Krinn.

You want to do the Why don't you want to do the Yeah, let's do that. That's probably better than the other ones, unless we do the acorn. Mm hm No.

We already talked about Clay. Peter wants. First, I gotta do my little bit that I always do with. I'll start Peter wants replaced punks a tawny Phil with a coin meaning the gopher, the groundhog that they pull out every year, and he sees his shadow and tell you the whether his track records horrible.

But he's But.

That's not the I bet that's not their point.

Well the other point. But the point is why not just flip a coin? Yea, this is gonna do is just as good of a job as punks tawny Phil, and then you don't have to abuse that poor groundhog.

That's their route to where they're getting.

But they yeah, they specialize at Peter, they specialize in getting. It's unintentional. I don't think they do like a well, what will they think of next and it gets people like me, I get tricked into covering it right, because they did do like remember they wanted it for a while. Old sayings that seem mean to animals get rid of old like more than one way to skin a cat, right, And they're like, that's mean. To beat a dead horse, Yeah,

Phil he's not a meteorology.

To drag him out, to drag him out and show him off to the.

Whole world exploited for tourism.

It's probably mean to drop them like they do.

Oh they drop them well.

Built later Oh oh no kidding, no, kid, that's great. It doesn't change my mind about the event. There's enough shortage of groundhogs.

But yeah, like, like, how.

Dare Peter say that he's not a meteorologist. How do they know what's going on? How do they stretch so far?

Well, they say the groundhogs are shy, solitary animals should be dragged out and shown off to the whole world.

It looks well, every single one that they hold up is a chunk monster.

I saw a joke over the weekend that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. And it's simply that we haven't applied this concept to enough things. Just grabbing an animal, pulling it out of its hole, and asking it unknowable questions about the future.

I haven't been.

Able to stop thinking about that, Like, this is a very peculiar thing that they just.

Stop groundhog, they need to keep going back.

The line was like owls. Owls have been claiming they're pretty smart. Let's see them prove it now.

A couple of years ago, Peter argued that they should wrap it up with punk Satawani Phil and swap it out for a quote and a matronic version. Oh, I get it, a robot equip with artificial intelligence capable of more accurately predicting the weather. What the strategy is with with with with Peter and I I'm a I get a kick out of Peter. Uh this stuff. I like what they're doing is there, You're demonstrating. It's like a

Out, that's what makes it great.

Drag this groundhog out, show them off to the planet, and oh, will the weather be ye. There's probably a good history of how many those little buggers they've been through over the years.

There's that place in North or South Carolina. I think that does the possum drop every New Year's And it's just like a country store, but they put a postum in a cage. They bring it up to the top and they like slowly lower it like the ball dropping, but it's a there's a live possum in there. No harm comes to the possum. But that finally fizzled out. It you know, it got some like some bad press, but then you know that totally went away because people

This really, who's looking out for possums these days? You know, I'm wondering who turned up the heat on.

That people do because I caught a possum. Uh not too long ago. I caught a possum. I was the Kevin Murphy and I'm holding the possum by the tail, and you know, they go into that shock right playing possum. Kevin's got all these dogs running around, and first off, what people didn't know I saved the possum's life because his pack of beagle dogs were set on killing the possum. Okay, I picked the possum by it up by the tail, and he goes into playing possum. I then want to

And die.

And I saved the possum, and that possum is not gonna fall off that mat a grapevine because he couldn't fall off if he wanted to. Hmmm, he's gonna have to walk out of there. So people do look out for possums. However, however, miss the line with reality. They are they look out for possums.

I got a possum in La wants Coren. I was like, oh, check this out. That's pretty cool. People didn't think it was cool.

There's something about you that, when you can see a possum, makes you want to grab by the tail.

Yeah, it's a nasty tail, big handle.

All right, you ready to see J Box?

I'm ready. Yep.

Uh. You grew up around hunting fishing a little bit, I did, ye, What what did it look like in the in the box household. What did sporting events look like for the box household? Sporting events like I'm sorry and fishing type sports? Oh, I had a Did you play sports like organized?

I did? I did. I was a wrestler and a cross country rider. But uh yeah, it was an It was a every year we would go deer hunting around midwest Wyoming. At that point, there weren't that many mule there there are, you know, like there have been now. But I grew up. I was thinking about this yesterday. I was driving up here that I got my first mule deer at age twelve with my grandfather's twenty five thirty five saddle car, being that he actually used on

Did you grow up on a ranch?

No? No, I grew up in Casper, But where we would go would be north of Casper.

And it wasn't like the good old days from mule you're hunting then.

It wasn't that area wasn't that great. But then it got Then there were more and more, and then I, you know, started antelope hunting, and I had even in high school. This is this is you know I'm old. I sixty five.

Oh yeah, good, thanks sixty five.

All my buddies and I used to have that. We call it the one Shot Prairie Dog Hunt Club. So we would actually keep our guns in our lockers in high school and as soon as it were wrestling practice was out, we'd grab them and go out and shoot prairie dogs with one shot well no usually the name, and then cut off their tails, you know. And so I grew up ran a lot of guns round, a lot of hunting. I got. You know, I haven't hunted

And I love to all wrapped up on the parenting.

Yeah, and I also love to go to my sons in law and says with with the meat and say, because you know your husband's will not provide for you, I have brought you and.

I still have to do it. I still have to care for my daughter.

Yeah, they love.

That they're not being adequately supported. What was the what was the first inkling you ever had about writing? Like, when did you become aware to the when did you become aware there was a thing called a writer and you know you could be one?

Ah jeez, you know, I think if you're a writer, I've often, you know, asked that a lot. I think you're you're hardwired with it or not. I've worked with people who want to write, but they don't seem hardwired and it's just never going to work. I I was going to write one way or another, whether it was oh yeah, I mean I was writing stories, you know, in second third grade. I never thought about myself as

What'd your dad teach?

He taught third grade, and then he was a principal for a while, and then he taught fifth grade for a while. So elementary school teacher.

Uh so good, honest, good on his middle class Wyoming upbringing. Absolutely, Yep, when uh you settled? So you did college to learn journalism?

Right? Right? I went. I had a scholarship actually to go to University a Denver in journalism. I was the editor of a high school newspaper that won a bunch of national awards, so I could go to a private school cheaper than I could go to the University of Wyoming.

M.

And then studied in major and that came out of that.

Yep, they called it mass communications, but it was journalism. And then my first job was on a weekly newspaper in Wyoming, and did that for a few years. Then realized I could make no money being a journalist for a weekly newspaper, so I had a syndicated column for a while that was mainly about outdoor stuff and then give.

Me, give me a give me an idea what you'd write about.

I would write in your column ice fishing, snowmobiling.

Like the bite's hot down at the local reservoir.

Right, it was like that. I called it far Afield And I used to, you know, I used to.

Would you do local profiles?

And yeah, I would you know the guy, the local guy who type flies and that kind of stuff.

Like that's stay away, gone away man. Yeah, we had I can't remember. I wish I could remember his name, mark something like. Growing up we had the Mosquite Chronicle where I grew up in western Michigan, and there was just like the dude I can't remember his name, but he was like the outdoor columnist. Yeah.

Those outdoor columnists are.

Like, yeah, extinct, and it'd be you know, one week could be slaying the white bellies, you know, like the white bellies are in in the Channel Mouth.

There's still I think the Billings paper still has an outdoor column pretty sure.

But people still remember, which is cool. But and I got to do lots of things, you know, with that water rafting with the Denver Broncos, you know, that kind of thing.

So they give you a salary, and they give you a thing like they give you a salary and then they say you figure it out, and once a week you write an outdoor column.

Right, And but I also covered everything else, you know, the four eight Champion cow or the you know, I remember going. I get to meet everybody, billionaires to survivalists, you know, and did little columns on all of them. And that was fun. I got to I think the best training for the kind of writing I do now is working at a weekly newspaper where you're forced to meet everybody. You can't. You've got to get out of a bubble, got.

It, get to develop a lot of characters right right.

And be comfortable talking to people in all walks of life. And what I've always found is if you show interest in what somebody is doing, all of a sudden, they'll you cannot get them to stop talking. You know, you show up with a blank notebook and they feel compelled

When you're doing that, when you're doing that line of work, would you try to go in do you try to go in dumb or do you try to go in and sort of establish your your bona fides?

I try to do. I do much some homework so that I'm not completely off base, but and you know, I usually have a list, but I try to, like without we talked earlier about issues in the books. I always try to talk to people on both sides of the issues and then have a character in the books espouse those so that so that at least it's a fair portrayal. It's not always a fair portrayal, but I try to make it a fair portrayal.

I meant that question more as an interview strategy, meaning let's say you developed Let's say you're working on something in your old job and you develop something close subject matter expertise, and you go to interview somebody. Do you keep it under wraps that you know the situation pretty well and present it to them as though they're talking to a knucklehead. Or do you like to go in and say, I'm widely read on this, what's your take.

I don't. I would go in and say I've done a lot of research on this. Is this true? God? I did a book called The Highway a few years ago. It's very creepy. It's about a serial killer truck driver. And I got together with a pair of drivers from Montana and we went across the country and I had

God yeah hmm, now, oh sorry, someone just going to say something.

No, but that was something I didn't really need to learn.

You can tell.

That's right.

Yeah, yeah, Next time you had volunteer for your highway clean up?

Here away from the Walmart bag, be properly prepared.

What was your next What was your next jump out of doing the journalism?

I started a company. I worked for a while for Uh. First of all, I worked for Wyoming Tourism, the state agency. I was a state employee, and I traveled all over the world. I was in charge of international tourism development. Really yeah, and saw that it didn't make sense for a state employee to go out there all over the world and say, come visit us. I'm a state employee.

Really, what did you do with that? You sold it?

I sold it to employees. Yeah. Once the books started making more money than the company did, then I could step away from the data traveling.

I assume you're you must have been writing books at the same time I was.

I was writing on airplanes and I remember writing in a Berlin hotel finishing up a book. You know, that's so so I have no patience with anybody who says I'd write a book if I had the time. You know, I had a company, I had three kids. You know, I was just trying to write a book a year.

To that that I have to do it. I love hearing those stories because that was not my reality. Man. I had like a way different way into it and never had to do that. Well, I didn't have to. I just chose. I didn't have a family or anyth when I was starting out as a writer, So I just chose to live like way below the power, like way way below the poverty level in other people's houses mm hmm. And didn't have a house, so I didn't have to compete with my own occupation because I didn't

Yes, yeah, yes, Larry Brown.

He wrote his first bunch of books at the firebarn. He was a fireman. And when everyone else is like playing video games and cooking, grilling chicken and throwing horseshoes, Larry Brown would be in his bunk writing novels.

That's that hardwired.

He never learned to type quirty m hm, he said he one time I was talking to me, held up his two index fingers. He said, I wrote seven novels with these two things, and like to bring up Yellowstone. So here he's born in. He's a fireman in Oxford, Mississippi, had never been anywhere. His first novel he wrote about a man eating bear and Yellowstone National Park. Had never seen a bear and never been to a Yellowstone National Park. Wrote that book, and he's like, that method is not

Well.

As a writer and as a reader, I much prefer novel with a great sense of place, Like you're talking about what you can tell. You can always tell when somebody's making up a location. Maybe they've been there on vacation, maybe they've you know, been through it, but you can always tell. I always thought when I was writing I always want. I want to write from the inside out as opposed to showing you know. I'm never going to

I can't remember who the comedian was that I was recently like, was it Dan? A dude maybe did a bit about this, the guy that sper he's been on the podcast.

Yeah, it was somebody who moved to Denver, I think, but we we didn't.

He's never on the show. There's a comedian and he was talking about when TV productions have to deal with what a working class person does, and so they're describing how like a there's a person investigating this like horrific murder, okay, And they go into a bar in the morning to interview someone about this horrific murder, and they have them.

I like that, and then that's true.

Yeah.

With the with the PR was it PR? Is that how you described the PR business?

It was? It was more marketing really. I mean we work with tour operators, travel agents, and then lots of journalists. I brought lots of journalists over here to the Rocky Mountain West and would take them on We called them familiarization tours fam tours. So I got to junk. Yeah, all kinds of every adventure there was. I was there escort, so I got to do stuff kind of reminded me of you. I think you do what you like best. And I was able to do that for years and

Old, and I didn't scratch the itch.

Yeah, I was done traveling. I'd been to Berlin in March way too many times. I was ready to settle in. And now I get to go on book tours and kind of do this. But I'm the guy who you were making.

You were making, you were making good money, decent, yeah, yeah, and you still.

Had to be like, I got to be a writer, yep, when you were when you were a journalists, did you were you writing in your free time? I mean, were you still coming up with book ideas and your free timer?

Sort of?

When did that transition take place into really working on books?

You know, I'll say I had like a twenty five year overnight success story. I started working on the book that became Open Season when I was actually a working journalist on the newspaper. But it took all those years, yes, to finally get it, and plus doing other things and having a family. My daughter's twin daughters, fourteen years old, didn't know that I wrote. They knew I had a home office. They know I went in there and did stuff, But I never wanted them to think my dad the

That's amazing.

Wow.

I can picture him later being like, what was your dad like, Oh, he's like a failed writer. Yeah, yeah, he tried, nice enough guy.

Yeah.

The travel thing in rural Wyoming, you know, it's like I knew Wyoming kids in college that like went on their first plane ride in college and they're like, oh, hey, you know what I did. Yep, this is actually kind of a funny story. Buddy mine road tripped home with a friend of his to Wyoming. I'm not going to say what town because people who know this story.

Was I'm probably related to it. Yes, exactly.

Yeah, And because our buddy who was driving had to make a court appearance and do a little bit of jail time on something that had come up earlier on as one does, and when he got there, you know, it's like your college kids, you're not all that serious about stuff. He missed his court appointed deadline and thought like, well, I'm here, and they were like, yeah, and you're going to be here for the next month now in jail.

I think of you? Was kind of a political have you are you? Are you political? Do you feel? In your writing?

I have opinions, but I usually try to, like I said, try to show both sides a little bit. By the choice of what I write about, I think I'm pretty much revealing how I think about a lot of things by by choosing that topic. Without I never want to write agenda books, but you know, I can only think of one book where I couldn't. I could not work up very much sympathy for the other side, and that

And yeah, it is hard. Those nine people aren't agree on anything, no, because when they know, even when they know, oftentimes they'll do a descent just to like articulate a dissenting view. Do you I mean, like if you knew, like if a Supreme Court member knew something was going to be, like if they knew somehow it was four to four and they have a deciding vote, that's a different vote for them, then it's going to be like

Yeah, yeah, I look that up Sacket versus EPA. And in the book I speculated at the end why these agencies were going after this couple, And my speculation turned out to be true, and it was a private It was an individual who was an ex federal employee who didn't like his view blocked by this house, but he knew which buttons to push, and I just thought, well, that kind of And then when I found out that was true, I felt quite pretient.

A personal connected vendetta, Uh huh can do a lot of damage.

Yeah, yeah, When did you walk through hitting on picket, you know, like like what work you were doing? And then when did you say like, well I need to do a or maybe you didn't intend it this way. I'm assuming you intended that you would find a character that you could serialize.

No, I did not intend it. I was just I was writing about the Endangered Species Act and the blackfooted ferrets, and I fictionalized them into creatures called Miller's weasels that were found and at the time I was working on.

Pause from it and tell me why why why didn't it work as blackfoot a fair because and then to be too connected to the reaction.

Right, And I didn't want to actually use the species because I wanted to give them my own characteristic.

Because then it would be that you had gotten it wrong.

It is funny though, over the time, I still hear from people to say, I look that up and there is no such thing. Yeah. But when I was working on that, the idea for this, doing the research that going to MATEITSI learning it. I was doing ride alongs with the local game warden and going to his.

House for this research or as your other job.

As I was working as my other job, working for the newspaper, and saw that his you know, state owned home, his kids running around, his wife answering the phone, acting at unpaid secretary receptionist, and the game warden lifestyle. You know there's in Wyoming. There's only fifty of them. They're very heavily armed, you know. They The guy I was with mid the point that no other law enforcement officer is more likely to encounter armed people than a game

It's like going to their own state cabinal.

So I just found it fast a fascinating thing. And that plus I grew up being a little bit scared of the local game warden who used to come to our school in Casper, Wyoming with a little spinning rod with a rubber ball on the end and if kids weren't paying attention to just shoot it across the room and bounce it off your forehead.

Oh, I might use that at home.

Why was a game warden visiting school to talk to you guys? Because he's investigating students.

No, he would say things like, why you're here in this place? You listen to your teachers and your parents. If you go outside, I'm your boss. You know you have to answer to me. And he's.

He's like going right to the source, that's right, and he uh, he was famous spent. I'll spend my whole career writing citations that.

Before you stray from the straight and arrow, he's got to get there and deliver his message.

And he arrested me for a hunting shooting doves off power lines when I was in college, but he let me go because I was in college, so I have on a good path. And he showed me that where he had arrested Dick Cheney for fishing out of season, same guy in Casper, Wyoming. And I when I visited Cheney in the White House a few years later because his wife was a fan, and all we did was talk about this game board and who arrested us both. That's amazing, no kidding, Yeah, huh.

I never heard of that about Dick Cheney did get a lot of but probably got a lot of media. Well, he's like in the wrong. He's the creek that was closed or something.

I don't know, because there really aren't fishing seasons, so I don't understand that unless it was some specialized area.

Fishing with bait or something.

Could have been a spawning closure.

Who knows.

So then you I got you sidetracked. But you're talking about the development of running with the serial character. So you started building this character for your es A Miller's Weasel Guy.

I wrote a book. I had it for five years before a publisher really bought it. It was Penguin Putnam, which is a big publisher, and when they made the offer the contract, they wanted two more books with Joe Pickett, so they made.

The offer off a completed manuscript.

Correct, yep. And then they wanted two more. Can you do this? They said, And I said, of course.

So they were. They were they were going to roll on it before they even saw how it worked.

Well, they knew that series, I mean series work. You know, it's because it's a it's a pyramid scheme in a way. You know, if somebody might pick up book number twenty four and really like it and say, I gotta go get all of them to get up to this point. Happens with every hardcover book that comes out, all of mine, the back list. They call it all go, you know, all get sold.

I mean here they ever throw they ever use the term the halo effect on you.

I've not heard the halo effect, but I can say when the when this there was publicity for the current book, and then twenty four year old Open Season appeared on some bestseller lists around the real country last week. Wow, So it's that kind of thing.

Did you start him out like as a rookie? Like has he aged in his career?

Yes?

Like, because he's got a had a long career, ye, distinguished.

That's one thing about the books is unusual from a lot of series that everybody ages in real time, right, so his daughter shared in the book number one seven years old.

Yeah, like a lot of the polespionage guys, like there's just like badass espion.

Old.

Yeah, you know, Sean Connery's out. We got to bring in Whoever's next?

Is this because you have several recurring characters, but obviously the main one is the most is the deepest, right, But is it like at this point having like a family member, like you know so much about him and how he would react to things like you just like you know, well, he doesn't like flying on plants, right, right, But and I'm sure he doesn't like certain foods. You only drinks certain beer, he only has certain you know,

Not that close to reality? I mean, But because I was a state employee, and because I've hung out with game wardens and I and I had this idea for the kind of perfect Western, iconic kind of guy Joe, and I named Joe. I thought average Joe, and the picket came from a shy in Frontier days, first first champion, So I just I had an idea for a guy. A story about that. A few years ago, I was in New York on a book tour and my publicist heard from this woman who said it was turned out

Yeah, but that's like the beauty of an average character, right, Like it hits a lot of those points with a lot of different people. They recognize things, or there's in their family members or people that they know or people that they want.

To be and he screws up.

I mean, it's not a blowhard no here, He's not like dirty Harry or something. You know, right, He's not tell me, but.

I think it. I always think it increases the tension because you think he might just screw up again. Yeah, you're never here, just not gonna win everyone.

When they when the publisher came to you and they were gonna they're they're like, okay, we'll take this one. Did they did? Did they make you do like a one pager or a one liner about what the other plot lines would be, or they just they trusted you.

No, No, they wanted it. They wanted some descriptions. And then and I had written a couple of manuscripts before the one was published that weren't very good, but the plots were okay, the subject matter was okay. So I just made those Joe Pickott books and said, Okay, the next one's about, you know, a canyon crossing of a canyon, and the next one takes place in the winter, and it's about federal a crazy federal land manager. So they

Never?

Really. And the other thing that I've been shocked by over the years is I've never had anyone at New York Publishing say I wish you wouldn't touch that subject.

Oh that's that's never happened that that's like a myth.

Man it is.

I think so it's like a myth.

I think we know some of the same people in publishing. We can talk about that, but none of them. They always say they want it to be more authentic, not that they want me to please them.

Yeah, I never it's it's a thing that it's like such a thing in movies and stuff or you know, the sort of this sort of guiding hand. And I'm sure it exists in some aspects, like I've encountered it in some aspects, in some areas of media, I've absolutely encountered it. I've not encountered it in book publishing.

I haven't either.

I think there's still it's like a it's like a it is beat up as book publishing has been, you know, with with changes in technology and how people like, how people use media and what they do, and how much it's had to change, there's still is a within that industry. There still is a sense of higher calling, a sense of purpose, a sense of free exchange of ideas, and they're just not as scared as other people.

I think so. I think that's true. I think there are exceptions, and I hear about things sometimes, but I've never personally run again, run up. I've had a couple of copy editors who at times anonymous copy editors who write that.

Little digs from copy editor.

That's what I got. I get that, you know. I remember getting an argument with one where I could because us I used the term Indian for Indian Country News, which is a real newspaper done in South Dakota, and they change the name to Native American News, and I said, no, that's what they call it. The people who write the newspaper who live.

On the res So funny because that's the copy editor digs. That's the digs we'll get from copy editors where they'll kind of do they like to do. They do their normal work, which is great, and then they'll do little gotcha's yep yep.

You know they're testing you're wrong, you think about this wrong, and.

You kind of want to be like, listen, buddy, I have a lot lane, I have a lot of years in this area. And that's the word I'm using.

Given that you didn't envision this as a series. What was the day like when they said we want this and two more? I mean, was that just like a shock to you or had the idea been floated. I'm just sort of wondering what day, what was that day like in your life as like a you know, a writer.

And I was at an international travel trade show.

It was Berlin.

I was surrounded by all my clients.

The publisher calls, I'm gonna have to call you back, yeah.

And I was just beside myself, you know, and none of them understood, none of them knew I wrote. And I am going on and on about, you know, a three book deal with with.

Puttnam and a real publisher.

And I thought they called Chuck finally lost. Yeah, that's right, that's.

Kind of like beyond what you could have hoped for, right, oh, yes, by far.

Yeah, especially because the book had been done for five years before anything happened.

Well, that'd be especially cool to get money for something you'd already done. It's not getting money I got to do, got to do it well, No publishers never taking the money. But I knew I had to do all that work.

No publisher is going to take a first novel on spec I mean, you have to have that book done and polished. Yeah, and it's just not going to happen yeah.

For novels, sure, yeah, because you can't rely on the concept to sell it.

So I'll tell you a quick story about that first novel because I, I, my wife thought it was good enough. Why didn't the publishers? You know? But I had an agent in the New York. It's this pre internet, pre email all of that. I'd gotten the name of an agent and I sent him physically send him the manuscript, and a year after year, I would like, yeah, and he goes, what's that?

Can you say who the agent was?

He's dead, so I don't want to say his name multipell you later, but uh, he gets real, you know, real New York. If you live, you'd want to say it, mate, I would, because.

I'll say stuff about dead people that I wouldn't say about life.

Well, he'd say, you know, it's digital market for it. It's not really traditional. It takes liice in a weird part of the country. I'll let you know if something happens. And I didn't know how the business worked. I waited for four years and then I finally went to a uh conference where you pitch your book, and I was I went in Denver, Colorado, and I pitched it to this. What was the agent. It's called the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Conference, and I pitched the name of it, and

Oh my god?

It had been dead for eighteen months.

Kid, this is like a bad novel about him in aspiring writer.

Nobody from the agency let me know.

And it's a low ceiling, shitty hotel ballroom that you guys are walking from fold up table to fold.

Up exactly exactly. And then the word got around this thing, this guy from Wyoming with his dead agent, and twenty four editor from Putnam was there and she had the right to acquire books for the first time. So I had an editor before I had an agent. Then I had to go get one, you know, a live one. After that.

You're kidding me, no, like, buy of your agent's dead. But I'm interested in the book, and let's get you set up with a live agent to ink the deal.

Well, this is her first first time having the authority to do this.

Did you catch it. Yeah, she wasn't the one I pitched you. She's the one who heard it over drinks in the bar that night and she reached out.

Did she slide in? And she goes, you know, the company's paying for these drinks and stuff too.

It's I didn't meet her. It came later at the time.

Did that editor wind up having some good success? She stuck.

She stuck with it, I think through six books and then she left publishing. But she did. She was my editor for my first six books.

You know, I would have published a novel if my if I had realized my agent was dead, you know.

Rand That's maybe that's what happened to me.

I make a couple of phone calls, spent ten years.

Uh, I'm trying to get to like the next one. I'm still kind of held up on that little story. That's like a that's like a it's like a comedy.

It is bad, really bad comedy. Yeah, and again it just seems to seem so long ago. But I mean, there was no internet. I couldn't look him up. I couldn't say, oh, oh, there's my agent's obituary. I didn't know, so I just he kept saying quit calling me and I did. How long you've been married forty years soon to be forty years?

What's your wife think about all this? Does she think did she used to think you were nuts? Or does she think you got what you deserve now?

She has always been very supportive. She's a better reader than I am, reads more widely, really good editor. She's the one who gets the manuscript first. She was the one who finally said, I think this book's good enough to go out there. So she's always been very supportive. My daughters are as well. They get the first. They get the manuscript first before anybody else does, all four of them, and they write up their notes to me, and sometimes they're kind of cruel, and then I go from there.

So family business.

Did they discuss it together behind your back and then come to it their.

Not behind my back? They all have their own takes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When my like, if my wife looks at stuff I produce, it's like completely critical. There's no like, oh that's.

Cute and maybe something based in last week's argument about something totally.

Well, I don't want to see my watch completely critical. But we have had discussions when she's going over the manuscript. We're all kind of say, you know, you could tell me that you like something, sure, you know, as opposed to she said, she's bitter about that.

But she's doing business.

Little she reads, she's doing Yeah, that's nice turn of free How many how many of your how many of your projects have you optioned for film and TV?

Well?

Actually all of them? I mean the Joe Pickett was has been a TV series now two seasons on Paramount Plus. It has not been renewed for a third season. But it's really complicated about the ownership on it, which has nothing to do with me. And then Big Sky was based on my other set of charricter and that was on for three years on ABC.

So when you do them, it's not like it's not your whole body of work. It's one offs.

No, when they when they.

I mean you're like all the whole have you have you made a deal for the whole CJ Box thing? Or is it just you do like individual pieces They bought Pickett in.

General in general. Yeah, they they actually name each book, you know, with the characters within.

It, with the with the TV.

Like you you were talking about how you've had total autonomy, like writing what's the experience been in TV? Like have you Because you hear a lot of writers like, oh, you know, I I want to just completely take my name away from that vert that television version, and other authors that are involved with the TV show may not have that same opinion, like where where have you land?

It?

Really, you know, it really depends on the producers of the TV show itself. It's so different with everyone. People on Joe Pickett were completely different than people on Big Sky in their approach there. I always felt on Big Sky they just wanted to go their own direction with the character names. Basically, after two seasons, they had a conference call with all their writers and the executive producer saying, Chuck, can you give them some ideas? And I held up

Gotta like be okay with you have to.

I'm you know, it's it's too frustrating to be on the set I found. You know, when you hear when you hear an actress who a character you created say my character would never say this. I heard that in the hair headphones, and I thought, lady, I made you, I could take you out your character.

Oh it turns out you get in a car wreck.

Your character literally said this already.

Yes, But whereas on the Joe Pickett series, they were a lot closer to the books very much. There's a lot of lines that came out of the books. I'd really pleased with that, But again, I didn't want to be in the set every day.

Yeah, would you have been, well, come on the set every day on the Yeah, I mean they're all they're all very friendly, you know, but I feel like I'm in the way and you just sit in the back room and watch the same scene thirty five.

Times, and I'm you know, I I would go to visit for three days and leave after one.

The one writer I've talked to and had on that really liked it and had a really great experience with the whole thing is talking Jack car the team he wound up working with from as expressed from him when we talk about the team he wound up really working on, Like would defer to his judgment, right, So he must have been on the set, yeah, well, very involved, like very involved in the scripting you know, you're always like trying to smooth things out and quicken things and cut

That's it.

Yeah, and it came away with a good experience. But man, most people, you most people, most writers, when you get into that, uh, they come away feeling burned. I brought up with Jack card it's a great quote from John Lockrea Lacar. Where's he go? By Lacar?

I've always I think it's Lockay.

I think he said watching your novel turn into a movie is like watching an oxen turned into a bowllyon cube and uh, and he that was not Jack Carr's experience. Man, so it's nice to hear from someone that liked it.

It's really and and like I said, I had two different experiences, you know, when one set was really great and they went were more more closer to the books, the other one wasn't. It's but you know, people, I'm an executive producer on both shows, and the people that what does that mean? And I would say that means I provide the source material and I cash the check. That's all.

That's just that that title, while it seems great, you should just talk to listeners. Executive producer. Take that with a grain of salt. It could mean that they were in there just battling and fighting and like finding the money and cultivating the idea and bled for it and took bullets for it. Or it could mean that it was already made.

They were copied on the email it was.

Already made, and they're like, oh yeah, I'll sign on to that. It's it's just it's the most It's sort of like it's the most. It's the title that gets the most attention, that is subject to the greatest amount of contextual understanding to know what in the hell that means, because it could mean anywhere from everything to nothing, but it still says executive producer.

I've also noticed the executive producer sometimes changed from episode to episod out, So I think there's just favors being paid back. Who these people are?

Your books?

The Joe Pickett books deal a lot with hunters and wildlife, which is something Hollywood like consistently screws up.

Why like why can't they get it right?

Like what like is it just like the people don't bother to do the like right kind of like they get cops pretty good in Hollywood, right, A lot of a.

Lot of cops wouldn't disagree. But yeah, right.

But I'm just wondering, what like when when you're the shows that were made from your books have had to deal with hunters or wildlife?

What's your you know what? Bro he just you know what he just did where he just committed was what's that that two names? I was real hot on it for a while. It's not Max Plank, that's the research institute.

I know Max Plank.

No Max Plant It's uh uh, it's the two names. It comes from two journalists.

And it describes like a cert.

It describes when you are a subject matter expert. Brody just did it. Brody's the subject matter expert hunting. He watches media portrayals of hunting. Oh, jeil Man amnesia.

Oh yeah right, Oh, it's been a number of episodes.

He just did jel Man amnesia. It's this, This is the perfect test case for jail man amnesia. Brody's subject matter expert hunting. He watches movies and he sees they always get hunting wrong, or animals or what Okay, he goes, but then he says this, But with cops, they get it right. Jail man amnesia is when you watch something as a subject matter expert and you realize how wrong it always is, and then you forget that and you think that they're right about the other stuff you don't

You're taking a long time to get where you're going.

Well, no, what's taking a long time? I read it, and I'm like, that's really not a great job, right, they missed this, They missed that, they misrepresented this. But then I go and read a thing about the stock Mark, the Quagmar and the Russian Ukraine War, and I come away from that feeling that I now understand what's going on in the Russian.

Uk I guess I've read a lot about like actors doing months of ride alongs with cops and doing a lot of research and things like like I'm not.

Just well, he's getting defensive. You shouldn't getting offensive. Well, no, like you said it, and then he said cops would disagree.

Yeah, well the answer.

Is probably think they always get cops wrong in the movies, but hunters now they get that right.

This is what's interesting. I just I didn't know this. This is Wikipedia, so I have to further fact check.

It's a great word, it is. It's almost as good as the words she couldn't find, which is what he say.

I think to answer it, I mean, there are very few people I have.

Meant, very moment sure brocking anybody.

Oh that's that's what it sounded.

But I don't see Brody getting all spun up here either.

You know, he's a little No, he's he's because he's simmering. No, no, he's emotional line throughout the day is like, right, Brody's not like you don't like wonder what Brody you're gonna get on any given day. He's like this, so you need to look for like very slight undulations. Actually he's not wrong.

I thought he was telling me.

I was like, so, I think this is a perfect example, right, Like that somebody who understands the subject is they're entertained. They know what's a majestic animal.

I'll give you an example.

Hollywood goes, but wouldn't it be better if it just stood up and scratched the air?

Here's a great example.

Like I recently watched the first episode of the new season of True Detective because everyone's talking about it the show. And in the very first scene, there's a Native Alaskan hunter like drawing a bead on some cariboo and it's a herd of like cgi caribou. They're all giant bulls, and some unknown thing alarms this herd of cariboo and they all start roaring and.

It's like but like.

Huge roars, you know, And it's like that's.

But it looked good, you know.

But the cop scene. Yeah, but the cop from Queens Dead On.

Yeah, I don't know answer that. It drives me crazy too, yeah even and I wouldn't even say. I would even say in the series that are based on my books or something sometimes right, yeah, cringe, or if I'm watching it with it. We did kind of a little local premiere last year of Joe Picket ser a couple of things in there that had to do with animals and hunting, and people just moaned, you know, and I thought it

And what would Joe What does Joe Pickett think of a fly fisherman? What does he think of you? Me? Yeah? Give give me you through his eyes, you're out fishing.

I think since I haven't countered game wardens. I think he'd be respectful, and he'd also check my license and make sure I had a conservation tag and arrest me if I didn't not give me a break.

I'm curious once you're.

Once you've you know, you've written all these novels, and you probably didn't really have an inkling that they would be, uh, you know, turned into TV. Now when you write novels, is it different? You're not you don't like see your characters as the actor.

I mean, that's what really not on your line. No, I'm not. I do not.

You don't tweak it just to try to change increase. It's like.

It's like one of those things I have to imagine to be like one of those things where once you've seen something depicted one way, it's sort of in the back of your mind, even though you're.

You had already written a ton of those books before they became.

That's the thing I did. Joe Pickett TV show is covers the first three books. That's twenty one years ago. So I'm not going to write something in the current one where Joe Pickett is fifty one to make that make it. Yeah, that's true, and so I don't think about that in the other books. And what the Big Sky Cassie Duel totally different character, totally different. I mean they from the get go, completely different than in the books.

What also that I want to ask you about with like the fiction and the reality of your existence?

Uh?

How like how informed is Pickett's relationship with his children with you and your children? Because there's kind of like a like an observation of not necessarily hip to the times, not tech savvy, miss is a lot like is that was that your.

Experience to a lot to a large degree. Yes, And I have three daughters. Joe Pickett has three daughters, so different ages. All three of my daughters think Sheridan, the oldest one is based on them. The other two. You know, I don't know where they come from. But because I know they're going to read the books, I know they're involved with them. I know they're going to offer notes.

You've never taken advantage of that to like immortalize some major screw up in high school.

Suddenly shown her father enough respect.

No sort of their dialogue and incorporated it at times, and they recognize it.

But you don't like air out their dirty laundry. No, No has the with the economics of it. Does the TV stuff like financially does that just immediately eclipse the the writing end of it. We're from like a money making perspective. You think of yourself more as a person that generates TV ideas.

No, the way I look at the TV shows are one hour commercials for my books, not as and and they and and and. It creates a lot more awareness of the books. But in terms of financially these days, with a million streamers and a million different you know, ways to either do shows or see them, it's not It's not that lucrative god anymore. But the commercial aspect being a commercial has made a big difference since the Joe Pickett TV show came out. Like we're looking at

Man, So what an interesting cree you had, though, I've.

Had three really interesting careers.

Yeah, I like because it's like it's just it's such a oh man, it's like American elbow grease, you know, like going to those lonely ass depressing conferences and well trying to like, yes, you know, it's like a lot of people got too much pride for that. Man.

Ah, I don't know. I mean that's it's kind of a glamorous job to international travel. It sounds better than No.

No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about no, no, no, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm not anyway. I think I was disrespecting your business, not at all. I meant going down and like showing up at something and just trying to hustle to find to find an agent, to find an editor all that. Do you know what I mean? Like you got to bury the pride, you know, and go down

It is, and it's you know, I mean, this is not any secret to you or anything you're not used to. But I mean, how many people in their profession have an Amazon comment section about every single thing they do where people from all over the world can weigh in and they all say, it doesn't matter what book is out there, they're going to say, he's don't even write him anymore. You can tell he mailed this one in kind of thing, no matter what book it is, and

So do you have to be that everything you have to say you just say it through your book, And if you don't say it through your book, you don't say.

It except privately. Yes, I do. Yeah, I think that's that's a good way to go.

Do you have a.

Like an agreement with the publisher, like what's your timeline? Like do you try to get one out every one a year?

Right? I have a contract on a deadline. Yeah, every either October or September day. I'm always ahead of deadline. I've never never.

Really No, do you ever bring in the collaborator?

No? And I don't think I could. I I can't think of the only I could conceivably maybe write with one of my daughters, because I think we think alike. But I did a short story once with another author who was a great person, but it was not fun and it didn't go well. Just two different processing when you.

I was last week, I was at the Bozeman Public Library and I went, you know, through the stacks, and I just think, oh, go check out. You're what turned out to be three shelves, right, that's good and well, and you know they it's funny because you know some of them were they had one copy, others. I mean I was I was shocked how many of these books they had like two or three copies on the shelf. And I was just it occurred to me, as you were talking earlier, going to that section of the stacks

Sort of they got in there.

Reflected on that spot because you probably never imagined it would be a whole half a Okay, I never have.

I have done that. I still do that, and I also do it in bookstores. It's got to be pretty surreal fu airport bookstores. That's always you never know. I never say who I am until I find out for sure they have the book.

Are you gonna You're gonna keep going with Joe Pickett till you can't go anymore?

You can do something different or no.

I have done some other things, and I've got some ideas down. Some ideas can't be Joe Pickett books. The serial Killer Highway Driver.

Optioned that.

That was part of the Big Sky. That's how it actually started out with that book and that story. But so I'll have I have some other ideas. They'll probably be different ones.

So you're not going to stop writing and just ride off the sun.

Joe Pickett, like I said, is fit to figure that out a few years ago. Go back from the very first book. How old was he? Thirty four? And then plot him at age at the same rate. Right, Actually, I'm older. I'm older than to Pickett. Yeah, so, and he's ready to retire. I'll be ready to fire, I think, really, yeah, I think, so.

Well, he's got to have twenty years now, he's well, he's gone, he's gotta have thirty, right right, I've gotta have thirty.

And not every book is a year apart. Some of them are back to back, some of them a month later, so I can kind of play around with that.

M hm. So you picture quitting someday.

Although inevitably there'll be some point. But I think if I start getting bored with it, or if I start thinking I'm retelling the same story, then I think I'll know to pull the plug. I don't want to do that. I think everyone needs to be a standalone in its own way. And when I'm rehashing the formula, which i I'm a reader too, and sometimes long time series, I start thinking, I think I've read this one before. I want to get out before anybody says that or thinks that.

You know. What prevents me from being able to watch serial dramas on TV is, inevitably you get some number of episodes in. It could be four or five, could be season two, and you can start to smell the writers stretching it out, trying to keep it going.

I understand now, you go back.

To Dukes of Hazard, and it would be that you have these cast of characters and like every week a bad man, a bad person comes to town with some kind of nefarious objective. They get vanquished and.

Just it's like Scooby Doo.

That's exactly what I was about to say.

I could somehow, I could somehow tolerate that. But it's the it's the storyline dramas Deadwood, which I was enthralled with that first, but eventually came like, oh, I can see now, like it's about time someone new comes to town. And once you once unnatural and you smell it, oh, it kills it for me. But dude, I'm like, I'm jealous of uh, I'm jealous of your career in program mm because because the way I probably imagine it wrong,

Right, I mean yes, And I just I was pinched myself and you know, I have the best job in the world. I think, you know, I go into my little office above our porch barn and do so many words a day, and then go out and do whatever.

You know, how many words?

Uh, minimum of a thousand, But some day I can hit three four thousand. Some days it's a struggle to get that thousand.

What time you get up?

I get up early, but I don't begin writing early necessarily. It's that usually you know, ten or eleven when I'm actually start writing.

Yeah, what time you wrap it up?

Whenever I hit my word count or whenever I start to just feel kind of mentally tired, I'll.

Part for me.

Uh usually two two thirty, So I think about that I have it three or four hour day. That's not bad.

Well, but I used to do that when I was just writing. I did the same thing. I'd be done early.

But you're always thinking, oh, yeah, that's what I tell my wife when she thinks I'm just staring. No, I'm thinking I'm working.

But you can't write for eight or ten hours straight like nobody, Like.

I've talked to people who say they do, and I kind of.

All that whole that whole idea we used to have this that you're like everybody thought it could be like Charles Bikowski. You know you're.

Bleeding for your way.

You're like drunk three in the morning writing all this genius stuff. You know. I would be basically if I was writing. If I was writing, that meant I was probably at night drinking because I was in town home. So I'd wake up, be kind of hungover, do my correspondence, like answer emails, do whatever I had to do, uh, do research stuff for a while, and then I would like, actually this, I would lay down under my desk on my back and fall asleep.

Huh.

And that would be my That would reset my brain and I would sleep. But I can't sleep long on my back, so it might be twenty minutes, maybe an hour, whatever it would be. I would sleep under the desk. I would wake up bam. I would sit up, get in my desk and do all the writing I was gonna do two three hours, and then I would go read and continue doing the research stuff. And then by early night, early afternoon, by way before dinner.

To start, I was done.

I was done. And then at that time my wife had worked about ten at night, so I would oftentimes I would make for two of us. I would make dinner. That would take me four hours to prepare. That's when I got like really into That's interesting because I didn't know what to do because she wouldn't she wasn't going to leave work till million hours at that time. Yeah, and I'd be like, man, that makes the craziest thing animays every evening that is done, I was done.

But yeah, I find not the writing the hardest thing as years go on. But but making myself get the time to write is harder now than the actual writing.

Is because now your writing business, Yeah.

There's a lot more demands. There's a lot more things going on. So what I try to do is is basically get the book done in the dead of winter when there's not a lot going on, so that I'm available to fish as much as I can, and play golf as much as I can, and folk the river as much as I can.

So right now, it's game on, right in time, that's right.

And I'm about two thirds done with the next Joe pick A book, which I think i'll have done before summer starts. I got grand kids too, that's the biggest thing ever. When they're around, I don't want to have to retreat to the barn.

I like that that you still, even though you're a writer, which is so modernish, that you still have a sort of there's a seasonality, you know, there's like an awareness of the solar cycle, right, like you gotta get it done in the winter. You know.

Well, you know what I find I can write about. I can write about the summer better in the winter and the winter better in the summer because it makes myself make it forces me to really think of all those things and not just take them for granted.

Well now, if not, if you're writing about the winter and the winter, you'd be like kind of sucks.

Yeah.

One thing I noticed, like early on and this book, was like, this guy has spent a lot, a lot of time outside at a very particular time in the fall, Like you're describing the brightness and sharpness of the light and the colors.

Of the lead.

And there's only like a couple of days like that in the fall where it's like everything super intense in October you always know, yeah, early October maybe, And I was like, this guy's been out there on that kind of day.

And where this book opens, it's on the bend of a river with super fall colors and a fly fisherman in the river and then a grizzly bear comes pounding down the mountain and hits him. That's where I fish, and it's actually on a private ranch in the ranch owner I gave him that chapter and he said, I can't go back there now. It's all I can think about is a bear getting me.

You know.

No.

But it was like, yeah, that's that one or two days.

In the fall.

You know that you get in the mountains.

It's cool.

Well, man, like I said, I got a ton of respect for what you've built. And also just how you came up. You know that you knew what you wanted to do and set out to do it well. And it wasn't handed to you. No, I had to eat. I didn't have to do what you did well.

I just I remember I was actually on a book tour early on at a bookstore and the bookstore owner came to me. He said, you want to know the best book I have read this year, and it gives me American Buffalo and.

Uh, and I tell you guy, I said, thanks.

I will and I loved it. My wife loved it, and I think I gave it to my daughter who didn't return it. So I had to go get a new copy. But hopefully I love that.

Tell heveryone. He wrote that he's asleep under his desk. Yeah, well everybody. C J Box has a new Joe Pickett novel out, three Inch Teeth. Great cover. Can you see this cover here?

Film looks great.

A few people are listening and you can't see it.

I want to tell you there's a grizzly bear in the center.

Fight it at your local bookstore. You can see the cover.

It's got some steam coming up when you see that steam. Are you picturing hot springs? Are you picturing, uh, steam breathing.

I'm kind of thinking just foggy, foggy steam breathing grizzlies.

CJ Box. There's an endorsement around the front. Joe Pickett is the one man you'd want by your side in a crisis. Number one New York Times best selling author, and the new title is three Inch Teeth. Check it out now available anywhere books are sold, and under the b at the local library. He's already cased it out and he's found the slot. It should be full. Thanks for coming on, man, I really appreciate it.

I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Like I'm a fan. It's really fun and.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate you guys.

Best of lucky with your book. I can keep steaming along. I will And thanks for being such a like A think of you as an American inspiration story. So we need to see more out of you, Americans. Look what you can do.

Your thank you.

Mo beans, mo beans, pole beans, mo beans. Talking about beans out there on the pole, better little call find some mo some mo beans, pole beans. There's a couple over there, a few more right there, one over there. Beans everywhere, mo beans, pole beans. Fresh set eyes find more beans, mo beans, pole beans,