It’s elk season in the Rockies, but this year one hunter is stalking a different kind of prey. When the call comes in on the radio, Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett can hardly believe his ears: game wardens have found a hunter dead at a camp in the mountains: strung up, gutted, skinned, and beheaded, as if he were the elk he’d been pursuing. A spent cartridge and a poker chip lie next to his body. Ripples of horror spread through the community, and with a possibly psychotic killer on the loose, Governor Rulon is forced to end hunting season early for the first time in state history, outraging hunters and potentially crippling the state’s income from the loss of hunting licence revenue. But when the brutal murders eerily coincide with the arrival of radical anti-hunting activist Klamath Moore, Pickett knows the Governor’s ruling is the least of his worries. Are the murders the work of a deranged activist or of a lone psychopath with a personal vendetta? As always, Joe Pickett is the governor’s go-to man, and he’s put on the case to track the murderous hunter, as more bodies & poker chips turn up.
