(2012) Mostly a Nate Romanowski story as he is pursued by part of his military unit who had introduced him to falconry. This follows up on the murder of his partner in the previous book. If possible, Nate goes furter underground in order to combat his old enemies. He tries to warn Joe off and get him to get his family out of harm's way. As usual, Joe only partly complies by getting his family out of state, but he stays and manages to converge on the bad guy's camp at the same time as Nate does. What a coincidence. Joe helps Nate vanquish his foe but not without the death of Hayley who was helping Nate after defecting from Nemecek's group. KIRKUS REVIEWThe dark past from which Nate Romanowski's hidden for so long and so successfully finally catches up with him and his friend, Wyoming Fish and Game Warden Joe Pickett (Cold Wind, 2011, etc.).?The Five. They've deployed,? Nate's pal Large Merle tells him with his dying breath. As soon as he hears the news, Nate knows that his years of living off the grid in Wyoming's Twelve Sleep County¥no job, no bank account, no Social Security numberÂ¥haven't buried him deep enough. Setting his beloved falcon free and abandoning or destroying most of his meager belongings, he high-tails it out, pausing only to shoot three locals who draw on him first. Joe Pickett, tangling once more with Ten Sleep County Sheriff Kyle McLanahan over his responsibilities as government official, witness and friend of the fugitive Nate, is pulled so completely into the triple murder investigation that at one point Luke Brueggemann, his new trainee, asks him, ?Does that mean we're going to get to do real game warden stuff?? Nate, meanwhile, makes the rounds of all his closest friends and relations from his days in Special Forces and finds that those who haven't recently died are in serious danger of getting killed before his eyes. Clearly John Nemecek, the master falconer from Special Forces who taught Nate everything he knows before sucking him into an improbable intrigue that led to a catastrophic screw-up for the federal government, is determined to keep his secret at all costs.The secret is preposterous but serviceable, and the strenuously unnuanced story moves like greased lightning. Box has done much better work, but this high-casualty actioner is just fine.Pub Date: March 20th, 2012ISBN: 978-0-399-15826-1Page count: 352ppPublisher: PutnamReview Posted Online: Feb. 5th, 2012Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15th, 2012

Special Forces background that lives by their own code off the grid?
Git some!
( )

More like a Jack Reacher book than a Joe Pickett novel. Joe is not in it that much. It was an enjoyable thriller as these usually are. ( )

Nate Romanowski.

In Force of Nature, trouble comes calling from Nate’s past in the Special Forces, and the colleague he once called a friend won’t stop until those who know a deadly secret are silenced. Everyone close to Nate is at risk, including Joe and his family. To save them, Nate will have to convince law-abiding Joe to finally break a few rules along the way.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S FORCE OF NATURE ABOUT?
Nate Romanowski.

That's the short version anyway—but it's not a helpful answer.

Since we met Nate, we've known that he's living off the grid for more than philosophical reasons—he's not just a modern Thoreau, But we've never been given the story behind that. He's offered to tell Joe, but Joe's smart enough to know he shouldn't know (but he is curious).

Well now, those people he's been avoiding are getting close to finding him. They are approaching, questioning, kidnapping (if deemed necessary), and putting all other sorts of pressure on those who may know something about Nate or his whereabouts. This includes new characters as well as well-established characters—including all the Picketts, his friends on the reservation, his mysterious friends in Idaho, and others.

To protect those who are important to him, Nate has to stop hiding and go on the offense. Along the way, the reader gets answers to a lot of the questions about him that we've built up over the previous eleven novels.

We also get another lesson in watching out for your ears around Nate Romanowski, just in case Free Fire wasn't enough for you.

Yes, there are several other things going on, but they all tie back to Nate Romanowski—his past, his present, and if he has a future.

A GRIPE
This is semi-spoilery, but without this, I might have rated this higher, so I have to talk about it. I don't think reading this is going to ruin anything plot-wise. Still, feel free to skip down to the next heading.

Nate, Joe, and Marybeth all agree that the Picketts have to get out of town for their own safety. So Joe, Marybeth, April, and Lucy get to the airport so they can get out of the reach of those who might try to use them to get to Nate.

See the problem there? I said nothing about Sheridan. Sure, she's away at college, but we're talking about people who have gone to Idaho and Colorado to find people to get leverage on Nate. Does anyone really think they can't get to Laramie? Yes, Joe sends his FBI buddy to talk to her, but that's to get information, not to watch out for her.

I literally kept talking back to the recording, "What about Sheridan?" Is it possible I missed the two sentences it would've taken for Box to justify this choice, but I don't think that's the case.

DAVID CHANDLER
This is book 12, David Chandler has this series down—I'm sure he's not on auto-pilot or anything, but at this point, it's got to be comfortable for him.

That said, he's on his game here, and really gets to stretch his wings a little—there's (obviously) more Nate than usual, and Nate has a greater emotional range than usual, too. Bang-up job by Chandler.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT FORCE OF NATURE?
This is the most action-packed, violent, and unpredictable Joe Pickett novel yet. I'm not sure it's even close—I'm not sure it's the best novel in the series, but I'm guessing it's quite the fan-favorite because of all the Nate material.

It's the C.J. Box-equivalent of Robert Crais' L.A. Requiem where we get all of Joe Pike's background* in the midst of a gripping thrill ride. There's a version of this post that contains several paragraphs comparing/contrasting these two novels that I'm sorely tempted to write, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to read it all. This will both serve to humanize Nate as well as build up his mystique. A nice trick to be sure.

I just got a very real lesson in careful typing by invoking Joe Pike in a discussion about a Joe Pickett novel.

Am I happy to have a lot of questions answered about Nate? Yes. Do I have a whole bunch of new questions about him? Yes. Do I sort of hope that he disappears for at least a book so we can refocus on Joe? Yes. Do I think that anyone with a mild interest in the Joe Pickett series will dig this novel? No doubt in my mind. ( )