Critical Mick

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Three Weeks to Say Goodbye
by C.J. Box
Corvus, 2009

One Review To Say Hello C.J. Box

American crime writer C.J. Box was best known for his Joe Pickett novels, but in April 2009 he beat out Declan Hughes to win this year's Best Novel Edgar Award for Blue Heaven, his first stand-alone. Box has now followed up with another break from his series, Three Weeks to Say Goodbye. Is it also a winner, or should he head back to the familiar territory of Wyoming's State Parks?

Three Weeks opens with a thirty-four-year-old civil servant, Jack McGuane, receving startling news from the agency which has recently helped him and his wife Melissa adopt their infant daughter Angelina. There has been a mistake: the fifteen-year-old birth mother had signed rights over to the McGuanes, but the eighteen-year-old father had not. And now the juvenile's father, a prominent and powerful judge named John Moreland, has determined that custody should be given to his troubled, irresponsible son Garrett. Agency, attourneys, and every other authority can do nothing but apologize.

Wealthy Judge Moreland offers to compensate them with a sum of money as he sets a date three weeks distant. The McGuanes see that it's the grandfather who is their adversary as Garrett has no interest in their precious baby. They urge him to stand up to his father and sign the custody papers over now. The disturbed youth and his gang friends respond with a campaign of terror against the family, knowing that if Jack or Melissa protest they will lose the possibility of him surrendering his legal claim to Angelina. Law enforcement is at Judge Moreland's command, but rather than offering protection the deputies are soon keeping the threatened family under tight surveillence to prevent any attempt at flight. (Should any readers dismiss the novel's situation as outrageously far-fetched, allow me to point out that it is based on true events.) Against such forces, what can an ordinary man do to protect his family? That night, as we lay in bed not sleeping, I slid out of the bed and padded over to the closet. On the top shelf of our closet, hidden by a ball of loose old clothing, was my grandfather's single-action Colt .45 Peacemaker revolver. The Gun that Won the West. I wish I could say he gave it to me in some kind of intergenerational ceremony loaded with symbolism and meaning, but the fact is I stole it while I helped my father move Grandpa from his house in White Sulfur Springs to a nursing home in Billings. He never knew it was missing and never asked about it at the time. Later, as he slipped deeper into dementia, the nurses said he called out for his weapon, but they had no intention of locating it for him. The revolver was blunt and heavy, with a six-inch barrel. It was loaded with five ancient cartridges. The firing pin rested on an empty cylinder to prevent accidents. The handgrip was made of ash, polished smooth by years of handling. The cylinder was rubbed clean of blueing from being drawn and put back into a leather holster hundreds of times. "What are you doing?" Melissa asked. "Nothing," I said. (pages 27-8)

A Way To Say Goodbye No, this is not a second book review in the form of a six-song EP. This is a sidebar nod to C.J. Box's fellow Westerners, Brave Combo- the rootin'-est, tootin'-est rock-polka band that ever rhumba-ed across Texas. I discovered Brave Combo in 1990, back when my boom box boomed a mammoth amount of They Might Be Giants. TMBG playfully experimented with many musical genres, but Brave Combo leaves them in the Texas dust. Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and The Rolling Stones are re-imagined as samba, cha-cha-cha or two-step. The Brave Combo's original numbers take punk energy to the old forms of big band tango and merengue. And does this unlikely fusion work-? It does, the same way that the notion of a Game Warden detective might not sound like a winner until you read one of C.J. Box's Joe Pickett novels. Coincidentally enough, lyrics from Brave Combo's "A Way to Say Goodbye" suit C.J. Box's Three Weeks to Say Goodbye:     Skip all the duress I'd rather find     Something to protect me from your kind     Behind a kleenex I'll shield my eyes     A way to say goodbye. It would be a crime if fans of good, fun music neglect Brave Combo. Bring them to Denver or Dublin today! If they are good enough for David Byrne, they'll do. Recommending polka and pan pipes?! Mick is officially un-cool.

C.J. Box writes like an Edgar winner. Tight pages turn and turn. With the help of childhood friends (a maverick, bent detective Cody Hoyt and well-connected Denver socialite Brian Eastman) the McGuanes dig into the Morelands' secrets as the twenty-one days count down. Why exactly do they want Angelina? What are they willing to do to get their way?

When not stampeding across Wyoming and Montana or jetting off to Berlin, Box introduces readers to the realities- gritty, bustling, frontier, urban, kind- of modern Denver. Danger roves the streets in flashy Hummers. A "Mexican Mafia" gang called Sur-13 are no longer simply crooned over by Los Angeles's El Vez, they have mysterious connections to Judge Moreland and his son.

Box reveals that the McGuanes have unsavory connections as well. Minor characters like Uncle Jeter Hoyt gave Three Weeks color and energy. Though some twists turned exactly where I foresaw them going, the plot held many surprises. Character development remained strong, pace fast and the writing always switchblade-sharp. Aside from a few entertaining visits to "action movie" territory, the novel was narrated convincingly and with terrifying plausibility.

One niggle I could never quite escape: if the titular three weeks were granted to the McGuanes as a gracious gesture, why didn't the Judge simply demand they hand over baby Angelina immediately, as soon as the gloves came off?

Mick has recommended CJ's book in Ireland and America.

Critical Mick says: Hard-hitting and fast paced, crime fiction fans are sure to fly through C.J. Box's second stand-alone novel, Three Weeks to Say Goodbye in three magnificent days.

Critical Mick's November 2009 interview with C.J. Box.

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This Page Was Last Updated On 24 November, 2009.