The Bitterroots, by C.J. Box (Cassie Dewell #4)

The Bitterroots is not an installment of Box’s long-running Joe Pickett series but rather features character Cassie Dewell, who has been in several of his previous novels. In general, I prefer the Joe Pickett series to this one, but these novels share the wonderful western Rockies setting and are enjoyable.

Here, Cassie has moved back to Montana to pursue a career as a private investigator, and in that capacity she is drawn into a dangerous, multi-generational family conflict related to a sprawling ranch in western Montana.

This book was okay. I loved the western Montana setting, and I appreciated the character of Cassie as a strong female lead. Still, while I’m sure it was unintentional and just bad timing, I found the plot and the characters of the Kleinsasser family in The Bitterroots so similar to the tv show Yellowstone (which, if you haven’t seen it, involves a Montana ranching family and all of their soap-opera-y business – plus the bonus of lots of Kevin Costner – love it!!) that it was distracting. Perhaps if I had not seen Yellowstone I would’ve enjoyed this book more. End the end, I wanted to like this book more than I actually did.

If you are in the market for a western-based mystery series, I think you’re better off with either Box’s Pickett series or Craig Johnson’s wonderful Longmire series (among others).