I’d say I’m moving through The Highway book series by C.J. Box rather quickly! A large part of that is attributed to my morbid curiosity of seeing how well the show, Big Sky, is relating to its source material. Well, I can say that by the end of the third installment, Paradise Valley, they really aren’t following the storyline. Now, I will say based off the second novel that the show totally deviated from, I didn’t really think that this novel would be followed either because the blurb made it sound like a direct continuation of those events.
Regardless of all that paralleling or lack thereof, I found Paradise Valley to be my favorite of the three stories so far! We open with Cassie living a pretty successful life three years after the events of the last novel. She’s well-respected at work, especially by Sheriff Kirkbride. So much so, that he wants her to take his place when he retires at the end of the year. She’s reluctant to do so, but she ultimately never gets the chance. More on that in a second. Her son and mother have adapted well to life in North Dakota, and she and Ian have also become engaged! Despite all her successes though, she is still hell-bent on catching Ronald and putting him away for good.
And it seems like the perfect opportunity to trap him has presented itself. At the start of the novel, Ronald is on his way to pick up a partial load in North Dakota, so she’s got the place swarmed with cops to take him down. All seems to be going well until the truck gets backed into the loading dock, and then everything explodes. Not only does Cassie lose fellow co-workers in the blast, but Ian is also one of the casualties. Instead of fighting it, she easily accepts defeat and resigns before the county lawyer can get her fired. All of the noise means that Kirkbride is forced to retire early, too, although he doesn’t seem to mind.
Luckily, Cassie is able to distract herself from her misery when Kyle goes missing. We learn that he and Raheem have taken off down the river, but are soon intercepted by Ronald who takes them as prisoners. The two boys also join a kidnapped lot lizard named Tiffany and a housewife named Amanda who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of them get the opportunity to gang up on Ronald because he fashions them all with explosive dog collars. Unfortunately, Raheem pays the price for being brave, and Kyle knows what he has to do in order to survive.
Even though Cassie is no longer part of a police department, she sort of becomes an unofficial private investigator on her search for Kyle, and luckily she’s built up some good relationships during her time in North Dakota. Lots of folks are willing to help her out, but her tenacity is what also keeps everything going in her favor. After some time, she ends up in Yellowstone, which is a bit of a callback to the first novel, so it’s no surprise that Ronald is back there in his old stomping grounds. He’s holed up in the wooded mountains, so she gets the help of a cantankerous old man and the local police department to help her rescue Kyle. In the end, Ronald finally meets his maker and Kyle comes out pretty much unscathed.
Overall, I really liked how this story went, although I missed the relationship she had with Kirkbride. He was still used though, so I can’t complain too much. I was also sad that we couldn’t see more of her relationship with Ian! Hopefully she can find love again, but I don’t know that it’ll be in North Dakota this time around. Now that the oil boom has passed in her town and she’s no longer employed by the police department, Cassie really doesn’t have anything tying her down. I guess that all remains to be seen in the last novel. I’ve already got my hands on it, so I’ll be sure to report back soon!