[Review]—A Pickett Daughter Joins the Dewell Investigations in C.J. Box's "Treasure State"

C.J. Box is back with his latest Cassie Dewell mystery, Treasure State, and it marks the first time a character from the Joe Pickett novels makes an appearance. Joe and Marybeth's adoptive daughter, April Pickett, is an intern with Dewell Investigations in Montana, where she mostly does paperwork and whatever task Cassie gives her.

Cassie has been working hard on her most recent case. Candyce Fly, a wealthy Florida widow, enlists her services to investigate the disappearance of private eye J. D. Spengler. After Marc Daly stole millions of dollars from Candyce, she hired Spengler to track him down. In Anaconda, Montana, a strange tiny town with an elusive sheriff who may or may not be on a bender, Cassie looks into Spengler's last known location.

An unidentified customer who claimed to be the author of the poem Sir Scott's Treasure approached Cassie before the Spengler case. Many people who have read the poem, which strangely emerged in a Manhattan eatery, believe the treasure is real and is probably buried someplace in Montana. The Montana landscape has claimed the lives of many treasure hunters who have searched for it. More individuals are joining the search for Sir Scott's Treasure because of an online forum, including Cassie's old friend Kyle Westergaard, 19, who hopes to uncover the purported gold treasure so he can pay for his grandmother's medical expenses.  

The author wants the treasure recovered by heeding the poem's hints, not the author's identity. In exchange for payment for her time, the author wants Cassie to utilize her investigative prowess to discover his or her identity. It wasn't until someone broke into her office, probably searching for information about the treasure, that Cassie started to get involved in the investigation.

Since I finished Treasure State in two days, you might conclude that I was completely engrossed in the story. Because there are two compelling narratives, it's more like two tales. However, the conclusions come across as a bit hasty, which raises the possibility that the author lost steam at the end. I would have been happy with this book even if it had been an extra 100 pages, just enough to give the endings a little more depth. Despite this, Treasure State is still a fantastic book to read, and I thought April Pickett was a great addition. Let's hope Joe Pickett shows up in the next installment.╌★★★★✰