Open Season - C. J. Box

The
first novel in the thrilling series featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett from #1 New York Times bestselling author C. J. Box.

Joe Pickett is the new game warden in Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, a town where
nearly everyone hunts and the game warden-especially one like Joe who won't
take bribes or look the other way-is far from popular. When he finds a local
hunting outfitter dead, splayed out on the woodpile behind his state-owned
home, he takes it personally. There had to be a reason that the outfitter,
with whom he's had run-ins before, chose his backyard, his woodpile to die
in. Even after the "outfitter murders," as they have been dubbed by
the local press after the discovery of the two more bodies, are solved, Joe
continues to investigate, uneasy with the easy explanation offered by the
local police.

As Joe digs deeper into the murders, he soon discovers that the outfitter
brought more than death to his backdoor: he brought Joe an endangered
species, thought to be extinct, which is now living in his woodpile. But if
word of the existence of this endangered species gets out, it will destroy
any chance of InterWest, a multi-national natural gascompany, building
an oil pipeline that would bring the company billions of dollars across
Wyoming, through the mountains and forests of Twelve Sleep. The closer Joe
comes to the truth behind the outfitter murders, the endangered species and
InterWest, the closer he comes to losing everything he holds dear.