There are 23 volumes of the Joe Pickett short novel series.
I started with volume 23 not really knowing what I was doing. A few things in that latest volume made me want to read the volume 22.
That's all it took to get hooked. Easy listening, Great narrator. And relatively short in length at eight to eleven hours long each.
So I did what I should have done from the beginning... and started with volume 1. It was a bit slow but it received some awards. Volume 2 got better. Then 'Winterkill', volume 3 of the series got pretty damn close to enter my top 5 favorite Audiobooks of all time list.
Now I am on volume 4 'Trophy Kill' this week Audiobook of the Week.
A little slower than the previous volume, definitely more gruesome and interestingly enough a bit less predicable than the previous three volumes. For better or for worse I think. There is a quality in Joe Pickett book series that makes listening or reading each volume a guilty pleasure. It isn't high literature and your eyes will roll more than once. It's safe and traditional story telling. if you focus enough, you will probably guess what happens next but what makes the series so great is that each book was not only published once a year but it also follows the Pickett family as it grows older. 4 and 6 year old kids in volume 1 from the Pickett family get a year older in each following volume for example, while the struggle of Joe and his wife MaryBeth to keep it all together becomes more and more difficult. The main character backstory is extremely simple and one dimensional if you look at each volume... but at the volumes pile on, each character slowly becomes more complex.
I will not spoil this volume ... especially since the storyline is already fairly predicable at time but lets just say that Joe Pickett meets the X-Files makes for a great listening experience.
As I suggested earlier, you should start the series at volume 1 to see each character grow and becomes more complex. but in truth, each volume is really self sufficient meaning you won't need the previous volume to get 99 percent of what each volume has to offer. You will miss on the 1 percent that makes this book series an addictive pleasure to read or listen.
Give it a try. You will love it.
The real question is price however. If you have to pay for each volume of the series, the whole series will cost you a small fortune and I mentioned earlier it takes a few volumes to realize how great an investment the whole series could be. To be very honest, if I had to pay 20 bucks for the first volume , I am not sure I would have kept going with volume 2. Luckily I didn't have to pay.
If you can have access to them for free this is a no brainer. Jump on the book series and start with volume 1.
Book details:
'Trophy Kill'
Volume 4 of the Joe Pickett novel series
Author: C J Box
Narrator: David Hartley-Martgolin
Length: 10 hours 38 minutes
Mystery - Suspens.
Contains strong language, gruesome description of death and some violence. Probably not for young listeners.
(This version is a commercial audiobook production)
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