Author Interview ~ C.J. Box

C. J. Box is the author of the eight novels including the award-winning Joe Pickett series.He’s the winner of the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, the Barry Award, and an Edgar Award and L.A. Times Book Prize finalist. FREE FIRE was a New York Times bestseller.




His short stories have been featured in America’s Best Mystery Stories 2006 and limited-edition printings. BLUE HEAVEN will be published by St. Martins Press in January, 2008. BLOOD TRAIL, the eighth Joe Pickett novel, will be published by Penguin/Putnam in May, 2008.

Blue Heaven, your first stand-alone novel will be released January 2008. Tell us a little about it.

I first heard the term that became the title in LA when an ex-LAPD police officer told me how many of his former colleagues had moved to extreme North Idaho to a place they called “Blue Heaven.” Turns out there are scores of ex-LAPD up there. The situation intrigued me, and I went up there to do research. The storyline came from the country itself: two children are fishing along a creek when they inadvertently see the execution of a man by four others in a campground. The children run and hide and the murderers, who turn out to be ex-cops, go to town to the sheriff and volunteer to lead the search effort for the missing kids. The novel is told in real time over 60 hours from the point of view of the children, a local rancher, a banker with a secret, a cop who has traveled to North Idaho to follow up on an unsolved crime, the distraught mother, and the cops themselves. It’s a wild ride.

Tell us about your publishing journey. How you get started, how you sold your first book, how long it took, and all the gritty details.

I’m one of those twenty-year overnight success stories. I always wanted to be a novelist, and wrote in secret since college. (In secret because I didn’t want my daughters to think of me as “My Dad, the failed novelist.”) When I completed OPEN SEASON I thought I had something and got an agent in New York who supposedly showed it around for four years with no interest. Whether he did anything at all I don’t really know. I stopped calling him and later found out that he’d been dead for a year! Before I knew that, though, I went to a writer’s conference and pitched the book to agents. One bit, and was talking about it in the bar that night and was overheard by an editor from Putnam who said it was the kind of thing she was looking for. She read it and offered a three-book contract. Luckily, OPEN SEASON went on to win a slew of best first novel awards and it got excellent reviews. I was off…

You’re continuing to write your Joe Pickett Series for one publisher while writing stand-alones for another. How do you balance this and meet both deadlines?

It’s difficult but possible. I write every day and keep as organized as I can be. I treat writing as my job and I work hard at my job. And, by the way, it’s a pretty good job.

What is it about the Joe Pickett Series that is so popular do you think?

I’m always wondering that myself, so I have to rely on what readers tell me to answer the question. Part of the appeal is that Joe Pickett is portrayed as a real human being. What I mean is he works hard, doesn’t get paid well, makes mistakes, and frets about his family. I think many readers empathize with Joe. Also, each novel is built around a real-life issue like the Endangered Species Act, or eco-terrorism, or development … real social issues in the modern west. I try hard to show both sides of many controversies and balance the approach. Readers all over the country – and now in 13 countries – seem to like that. And each novel is different. There is no formula – anything can happen to anyone. Kind of like real life.

With your first novel, Open Season, I read that you began with an issue, how a well-intentioned law like The Endangered Species act can make people do things they wouldn’t normally and built your novel around that. Do you always start with an issue?

Yes, and that’s important to me. I want to write about real things, not just who-done-it. This isn’t to say that the books are screeds or rants. I don’t have an agenda other than that a reasonable approach is the best with most issues. I’ve found that readers really enjoy seeing issues explored that are close to home.

Besides crime novels like the Pickett Series, and thrillers like Blue Heaven, do you have other types of books in you that someday you’d like to write?

Oooh, tough one. I think someday I’d like to write a book of nature and fishing essays. But since that sounds really boring and I doubt anyone would want to read it, so don’t look for it soon. I’d also, some day, like to write an historical novel set in the mountain man period. Don’t look for that one soon, either.

Joe Pickett tends to clash with his bosses, does CJ Box sometimes clash with his editors? Like when they change the title of his novels for instance?

Not really. I harken back to my days as a state employee to recall those kinds of clashes. I know this sounds like I’m being a brown-nose, but my editors have all been extremely bright and supportive and have only wanted the novels to be better. If they want to change the title I hear them out and have to conclude they’re right in nearly every case.

How do you handle it when an editor suggests changes that you don’t feel are right?

It rarely happens, to be honest. Usually, if they want changes at all, they are more of the “can you please flesh out this scene more” variety. They rarely want outright changes of direction, but ask for more detail or nuance. That seems fair to me because it makes the scene better and the book better.

What are the challenges of writing a series? What about a stand-alone? What are the benefits of each?

To answer this inj full would take days, so I’ll try to be brief. One of the great things about a series is familiar characters and the continuity from novel to novel. But the baggage can get very, very heavy as well as the series progresses. I need to always remember that a reader might be picking up Book Eight having not read the previous seven, so I’ve got to introduce just enough back-story to make the characters clear without going on and on and bogging down the narrative, especially for the loyal readers who’ve read them all. That’s tricky. One way I’ve tried to keep the series fresh is to change the circumstances – Joe’s children get a year older each book, or he gets fired or changes jobs – so it’s not all rote or formula. The challenge to writing a stand-alone is the same as writing that first book in the series – a whole new world needs to be created and the style and tone needs to be shifted a bit so it doesn’t read like a novel in the series that isn’t a novel in the series.

You’ve said yourself that your craft continues to improve from book to book. What do you attribute this to?

Simply experience and an inner feel that’s tough to describe. Plus, there’s a certain arc and flow to a novel that comes with having written nine of them. I think one learns with each book what can be left out.

Do you have any advice for someone wanting to write suspense novels?

Read! The world is awash in great crime fiction and much of it is as “literary” as most literary novels – only it is fun to read. Too many would-be writers don’t read enough to know what’s out there. I do think it’s a mistake, though, to read nothing but crime fiction. Horizons should be broadened. I try to read fiction, non-fiction, fiction, with a crime fiction novel being every fourth or fifth. It helps me as a writer to read great writing no matter what the genre.

Who do you like to read? Is there an up and coming novelist that you’re particularly excited about?

Here’s my list of favorite writers:

- Thomas McGuane
- Ken Bruen
- Cormic McCarthy
- Elmore Leonard
- Joseph Heller
- Steven Ambrose
- Raymond Chandler
- Dennis Lehane
- Annie Proulx
- Tom Wolfe
- James Lee Burke
- Donna Leon
- Richard Russo
- Harper Lee
- Ivan Doig
- John Houston (White Dawn)
- Thomas Berger
- Farley Mowat
- Herman Melville
- Wallace Stegner
- Edmund Morris
- Michael Kelly
- John Sandford
- George Pellecanos
- Denise Mina


Two up-and-comers I really like are Denise Mina and Kevin Guilfoile.

Would you give a tip or two regarding keeping readers on the edge seat for those who are writing thrillers?

A thriller is like a shark – it needs to always be moving forward. If it stops, it dies.

And good luck on your thriller, by the way.

You’re a family man, a writer, an avid outdoorsman, and you co-own an international tourism marketing firm with your wife. How do you time manage to find balance?

I don’t know! He cried desperately.

Parting words?

This was a very long interview, but fun as well. Time for a beer now.