Open Season

Open Season is C.J. Box’s 2001 debut crime novel and the first installment in the Joe Pickett series. The novel follows Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett as he discovers a deceased poacher in his backyard and goes on to uncover a murder conspiracy. Joe faces backlash and sabotage as he investigates the crime and connects the murders to the discovery of a supposedly extinct species living in the Bighorn Mountains. Open Season won the Best First Novel award at the Anthony Awards, Macavity Awards, Gumshoe Awards, and Barry Awards, and it was included on the New York Times’s list of Notable Books in 2001. In 2021, Paramount Television Studios produced a streaming series, Joe Pickett, which adapted Open Season for its first 10-episode season.

This guide uses the G.P. Putnam & Sons 2016 trade paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, bullying, illness and death, pregnancy loss, and animal cruelty and death.

Plot Summary

Game warden Joe Pickett toils on a Wyoming ranch, catching up on work left behind by his legendary predecessor, Vern Dunnegan, after his sudden retirement. Joe hears several gunshots and confronts a poacher, Ote Keeley, who takes Joe’s gun as he’s writing out a ticket. Ote returns Joe’s gun, but a colorful rumor about the incident spreads and isolates Joe in his new community.

Later that fall, Joe finds Ote dead in his backyard woodpile after his seven-year-old daughter Sheridan thought she saw a monster. Joe collects scat samples from a scratched cooler Ote was carrying, and Sheridan spies a small weasel-like animal hiding in the wood after police investigate the scene. Sheriff Barnum, long-time head of the Twelve Sleep County police force, takes Joe up on his offer to investigate Ote’s remote elk camp.

Joe seeks out fellow game warden Wacey Hedeman at the prestigious Eagle Mountain Club, and Wacey agrees to guide Joe and a young Deputy McLanahan to the off-road elk camp. After an unplanned overnight camp in the woods, Joe, Wacey, and McLanahan surround the elk camp and discover the bodies of Kyle Lensegrav and Calvin Mendes, Ote’s outfitter friends. Another man, Clyde Lidgard, emerges from one of the tents, and McLanahan and Wacey shoot him. Joe gets grazed by a stray bullet and stays overnight in the hospital. Vern Dunnegan visits Joe and offers him a job at InterWest, a pipeline company that Vern transferred to for a higher salary. Joe’s wife Marybeth and her mother, Missy Vankeuren, are excited by the opportunity.

Meanwhile, Sheridan and her sister Lucy befriend the weasels in the woodpile by feeding them food scraps. Sheridan, a lonely girl, is happy to have found friends in her new home, so she keeps the animals a secret. The girls play pretend by mimicking the animals whenever they aren’t watching them. Joe is happy his daughters aren’t affected by Ote’s murders, but he feels conflicted about his low-paying job and their quality of life. Joe wanted to be a game warden since making a boyhood pact with his brother, and he at once resents and loves the long hours outdoors.

As hunting season opens, Joe hears rumors about an endangered animal living in the mountains. Both Vern and Wacey try to dissuade Joe from investigating the animals. Frustrated with the lack of movement in the murder case, Joe investigates Clyde Lidgard’s trailer on his own. He finds no evidence that points to Clyde as the murderer, but someone sets the trailer on fire to burn the proof.

Joe’s investigation is sabotaged again when the animal scat sample he sent for analysis goes missing, so he sends a secret sample to an out-of-state colleague. Joe learns about the endangered Miller’s weasel from Ote’s widow, Jeannie, and he begins to suspect there is a conspiracy to cover up the existence of these allegedly long-extinct creatures. Wacey deduces that Sheridan knows about the weasels, and he threatens her several times to keep the creatures a secret.

Joe’s suspicions grow when the Game and Fish Department suspends him for a months-old violation. He tries to accept the offer from InterWest, but Vern now claims there was never a job waiting for Joe. A sinister aura starts bubbling through Vern’s amiable demeanor, and Joe suspects Vern is behind his suspension. Joe’s family temporarily moves into a house at Eagle Mountain Club at Wacey’s suggestion, but the mansion’s grandness makes Joe feel even worse about his situation.

Meanwhile, Marybeth supports Joe, telling him to follow his instincts about the investigation. Joe re-investigates Ote’s elk camp and the nearby canyon, and he finds a remote basin where a Miller’s weasel colony used to live. He also finds evidence of their deliberate extermination at the hands of humans.

Sheridan, sleepless with fear for her family and the animals, concocts a lie to return to their old house. Marybeth and Sheridan startle Wacey, who is in the backyard trying to kill the weasels, and Wacey shoots Marybeth. Sheridan runs away and hides in the foothills. When Joe returns to town, he happens upon the scene, and Wacey lies about his involvement.

Joe follows Marybeth to the hospital, where she loses her pregnancy while in surgery. Joe wanders the hospital and finds Clyde Lidgard’s hospice room. Clyde confesses to finding and taking pictures of the Miller’s weasels, and he passes away. Joe, now infuriated that the conspiracy has harmed his family, confronts Vern with Clyde’s photos, which not only show the Miller’s weasels but also show Vern and Wacey killing them. Vern confesses to his involvement in Wacey’s murder cover-ups. Vern and Joe return to the house as Wacey is about the shoot Sheridan. Joe shoots both Wacey and Vern so they can’t escape Sheriff Barnum, who speeds toward the house.

Joe reports the existence of the Miller’s weasels, and the Epilogue describes how this decision affects Twelve Sleep County. The government establishes a protected zone for the weasels, and the small animals become a national sensation. Environmentalists from across the country journey to Saddlestring to monitor the weasels, sometimes doing more harm to the population than good. Many townsfolk lose their jobs in hunting and logging. Wacey and Vern both face charges for their crimes, and Joe gets reinstated as game warden. Joe helps his family work through their trauma, and they foster Jeannie Keeley’s daughter April. Joe and Sheridan continue to feed and raise the weasel family in their backyard until they’re strong enough to live in the wild under Joe’s watch.