For years, Joe Pickett has been plagued by the mother-in-law from Hell.  A perennial divorcee and gold-digger, Missy has constantly denigrated his profession and his manhood, attempted to drive a wedge between Joe’s daughters, and on one occasion even asked Joe to leave his wife for what Missy perceives to be the greater good.  And so, when Cold Wind begins and she is arrested for the murder of her multi-millionaire husband, Joe isn’t the first to leap to her defence.  However, Joe is what he is; a man committed to justice and with a knack for digging up the truth, and he soon puts both character traits to use in attempting to blow apart a suspiciously strong case against his mother-in-law.

Missy has always been a powerful peripheral character, popping up to drive a thorn into Joe’s side at regular intervals.  Leaping from one lucrative divorce to another, she has acted utterly without morals throughout the series, but has she really made the leap from parasite to black widow?  It’s an engaging mystery, with Box giving the perennial antagonist centre-stage to great effect.

As the plot focuses on a murder trial, Cold Wind offers a reasonable amount of legal wrangling, but Box knows better than to mix it up in the ring with the legal-thriller heavyweights (just as Grisham wouldn’t be foolish enough to blunder into the wilderness and start writing atmospheric rural crime).  As such, the thematic spine of the book is supplied by wind power.  Wind power is the darling of the energy world, and the US government has thrown multiple billions of dollars at wind projects over recent years.  In light of bailouts and recession, Box casts a critical eye over the wisdom of federal funding, and over the merits of wind power as a whole.  The established orthodoxy around wind gets a rigorous examination, from the level of grassroots NIMBY-ing, up to the fiscal madness that is bankrolling turbines that aren’t even connected to the grid.  Box has never pulled a punch with regards to environmental issues, but Cold Wind is his most persuasive book yet.

For newcomers, I should perhaps nod to the consistent virtues of the Pickett series, as prevalent in Cold Wind as ever; breathtakingly beautiful depictions of rural Wyoming, rich characterisation, a superb eye for human relationships, and an always-fascinating discussion of the minutiae of rural life.  Plot-wise, the book suffers a little from a relatively shallow pool of suspects, but this doesn’t prevent it from becoming yet another Box offering that’s well worth immersing yourself in for a couple of days.

It should be said though, that while it is as strong as any of the Pickett series, Cold Wind feels in many ways like a novel laying the ground for the follow-up, Force of Nature.  The rich panoply of supporting characters that have appeared throughout the series is thinned out, and the sub-plot relating to Nate Romanowski and the underground movement appears ripe to bubble to the surface.  Romanowski has always flirted with stealing the show from Pickett, and given events in Cold Wind, we can fully expect Box to free the beast at last, turning his ex-Special Forces sidekick loose, no doubt with explosive results.

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