Badlands

A Cassie Dewell Novel

By: C.J. Box

Narrated by: January LaVoy

Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Edgar Award-winning, New York Times best-selling author C. J. Box is back with a masterpiece of suspense set in a time and place that listeners won't soon forget.

Twenty miles across the North Dakota border, where the scenery goes from rolling grass prairie to pipeline fields, detective Cassie Dewell has been assigned as the new deputy sheriff of Grimstad - a place people used to be from but were never headed to. Grimstad is now the oil capital of North Dakota. With oil comes money, with money comes drugs, and with drugs come the dirtiest criminals hustling to corner the market.

In the small town resides 12-year-old Kyle Westergaard. Even though Kyle has been written off as the "slow" kid, he has dreams deeper than anyone can imagine. He wants to get out of town, take care of his mother, and give them a better life. While delivering newspapers, he witnesses a car accident and takes a mysterious bundle from the scene. Now in possession of a lot of money and packets of white powder, Kyle wonders if his luck has changed.

When the temperature drops to 30 below and a gang war heats up, Cassie realizes that she may be in over her head. As she is propelled on a collision course with a murderous enemy, she finds that the key to it all might come in the most unlikely form: an undersized boy on a bike who keeps showing up where he doesn't belong. Because a boy like Kyle is invisible. But he sees everything.

©2015 C. J. Box (P)2015 Macmillan Audio

Heroes Do Not Cry and Can Be Invisible

I purchased this book due to narrator Ms LaVoy even though this author is not for me. I tried book 1, Joe Pickett series from the 1st in series sale, and took another chance on this author since I love Ms LaVoys spot on narration. Frankly, she saved this book from being just a gory graphic semi white supremacy minded story.
Since Ms LaVoy does such a great job on our little man, who MANS UP due to a weak, but loving self serving mother, this story will steal your heart.
This author can write well in the Earnest Hemingway style make no mistake! He has great descriptions that paint a vivid picture eg crouched like a feral cat. Believe me, I would never visit North Dakota in the winter based on the authors depiction of the terrain in this story.
I liked the characters in this story and see another book coming, but I do not like graphic descriptions eg author Karin Slaughter early books, Undone. I just do not trust where this author is going and how much gore he can tell, so I will have to pass on the next Captain Kyle adventure. The next book is not narratored by Ms LaVoy, a shame, but the sample was good even though authors fans did not like that new female narrator either. When authors like to branch out in there characterization their fans can keep them from expanding their writing style as I have seen from review comments.
This was a fast pace story, but I do use the 1.25x speed to match the author intent.
Were my comments helpful?

Cj box stories

everything cj box writes is incredible. I've either now listened or read everything by him.

Awesome never disappoints

This was a great 3rd book the best so far. CJ Box is the best author.

Badlands

SPOILER ALERT! It’s was good. Not Joe Pickett but it was good. I miss Cody but it was a good story. January always does a great job! Looking forward to the next in the series.

CJ Box is on my top 10 list!

The Lizard King’, is horrifying! And killing the last bad guy with nature is the best kind of karma!

Great book by Box.

Awesome book and great narration. Don’t usually listen to female narrators but LaVoy did an excellent job.

loved this one

comeback after my least fav book 2 box
very suspenseful and realistic drug thriller indeed

I enjoy the twists

Such a great little story. CJ Box has such a great imagination with all his book series. Never a let down

Pleasant and Entertaining

Where does Badlands rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Top 40 but I have downloaded probably over 600 books so top forty is a good position for me.

What did you like best about this story?

I live in the South and years ago I spent a day driving through the badlands and very much enjoyed the experience. The book's title is what drove me toward clicking the pre-release button and I was rewarded by the book.

What does January LaVoy bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

She has a style in this story that makes the author's work just stand out.

Any additional comments?

I could visually see a picture of the events taking place as I listened. The young boy Kyle's voice was well presented with his speaking disability and because of his being a pre-teen my instinct was to picture and feel his situation. I liked the book.

A Real Thriller with a not so thrill ending

We have been looking forward to getting this book and read it in one day...a pretty good thriller with plenty of edge of seat suspense. C J Box always has some great understanding of the economic and social effects of the area in which his stories develop. Its about parks, oil wells, ranching, solar power, fracking and so on. He has a really good understanding of the economics of the area and we always come away with new knowledge. We will have to wait for the next installment to learn the fate of Ms Cassie and the Lizard King. However, he did complete the main separate story.