Edgar winner Box's excellent fifth Cassie Dewell novel (after 2019's The Bitterroots) sets the former police officer, now a PI in Bozeman, Mont., on the trail of a con man who bilked wealthy widow Candyce Fly out of $5 million and vanished. Fly earlier employed another PI--the marvelously noxious J.D. Spengler--to track the man down, but both Spengler and his quarry disappeared into the old mining town of Anaconda, Mont. Cassie travels there to investigate, and soon realizes that she has stumbled on a lethal conspiracy that goes far beyond the victimization of her client. A second case involving a buried treasure adds to the intrigue. Box has rarely been better in his plotting, with shifting timelines revealing the scope of the crimes. The criminal conspirators are both inventively corrupt and chilling, and the cleverly constructed mystery is leavened with generous doses of Montana history, along with the welcome appearances of characters from earlier Cassie novels. The story culminates with one of Box's most satisfying payoffs. Hopefully, fans won't have to wait another three years for the intrepid Cassie's next adventure. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary. (Sept.)

Private eye Cassie Dewell pursues two very different cases that take her far from Bozeman. The morning after someone breaks into her office, Cassie gets a call from Candyce Fly, a widow in Boca Grande, Florida, who wants her to track down J.D. Spengler, the PI she'd hired to find Marc Daly, the charmer who'd charmed her out of her life's savings. After following Daly's trail all over the country and linking him to three other women similarly swindled, Spengler had sent Candyce encouraging words from Montana a day before going AWOL himself. Though Cassie agrees to look for him, she's more teased by her other case, which also hinges on a phone call. Ever since someone inscribed a poem oracularly hinting at the location of "Sir Scott's Treasure" on the whiteboard at a local bar, everyone around has wondered who hid the treasure and where it can be found, and several intrepid hunters have died in the course of their search. Cassie's caller, who tells her that he's the one who's hidden the treasure and written the poem, offers her $2,000 to test his security by attempting to find him; if, against all odds, she does track him down, he'll pay her a bonus of $25,000. Box's early revelation of who's behind Spengler's disappearance turns that mystery into a duel of wits between Cassie and the bad guys. But Kyle Westergaard, a teenager she once rescued from a dangerous kidnapper, keeps sparking her interest in Sir Scott's Treasure, whose location and mastermind provide a nifty pair of final surprises. All this and Montana, too. Talk about treasure. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Montana is known not only as Big Sky Country but also as the Treasure State. It has lots of killer views--literally, for Cassie Dewell. Cassie's PI business is booming, and she finds herself working two cases simultaneously. One involves tracking down a seductive con man who has defrauded wealthy women out of millions, and the other concerns identifying the writer of a poem being circulated about a buried treasure. Everyone loves a treasure hunt, but five people have died on this one. Cassie spends a lot of time behind the wheel, as a "short drive" in Montana is anything under two hours. There are some seriously bad guys and a handful of good guys involved, and Box's descriptions are vivid, as always, including that of a man whose "steel-toed work boots were the size of small dogs." Cassie's idea of "dressed up" is a black suit paired with highly polished red cowboy boots. The action is subdued, but the tension runs high. Cassie calls in all of her markers to make sure she is just a phone call away from back-up. This is her sixth outing, following The Bitterroots (2019), and the best yet. When not appearing on the printed page, she can be found on ABC in a television adaptation called Big Sky, recently renewed for a third season, with the author as executive producer.

The 30th novel by Box, the sixth in the Cody Hoyt/Cassie Dewell series (following The Bitterroots), has Cassie working as a private investigator in Montana hired by a wealthy Florida widow whose previous PI went missing in Anaconda, MT, after promising he was closing in on the man who defrauded her of $7 million. Also afoot, the state is filled with treasure hunters after clues left in an anonymously-posted poem promising a chest of gold worth millions was hidden somewhere on a mountainside. Cassie is hired not to find the treasure but the man who hid it. Her skills as an investigator are apparent as she simultaneously works her cases. Her calm, confident approach infuriates her adversaries, but can she stop them before more bodies are added to the list of casualties of both the fraud and the treasure hunt? VERDICT Readers needn't be familiar with the series to appreciate this fast-paced mystery that pits betrayal, anger, and hate against hope and longing as it examines the lasting effect of a community used and abandoned after making a fortune for the titans of the copper mining industry. Will appeal to fans of Bryan Gruley, Lisa Sandlin, and Tim Johnston.--George Lichman