61 pages • 2 hours read
Three-Inch Teeth
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Background
Series Context: The Joe Pickett Books
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence and death.
The series follows Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett as he grapples with the beautiful but complex landscape of the contemporary American West. The warden is an everyman hero and the father of three. He deals with illegal hunters, extreme animal rights activists, corrupt politicians, and outrageous criminals over the course of the series. At stake in Joe’s fight for the good side is the safety of his family and the vision of a peaceful America where nature and humans exist in harmony. Joe is assisted in his adventures by his wife, Marybeth; their three daughters; and, in later books of the series, his friend Nate Romanowski, an ex-special-ops operator who now runs a falconry.
Three-Inch Teeth is the 24th book in the series, which began with 2001’s Open Season. Like previous books, Three-Inch Teeth features themes like the dichotomy between humans and animals, government corruption, and the cycle of revenge. The book also sees the return of familiar villains Dallas Cates and Axel Soledad. Cates’s backstory is particularly important to the plot of the book. A famous bull-rider and troublemaker in Joe’s county, Cates belongs to a particularly malevolent family in town. His path collides with Joe’s when he begins dating April, the warden’s adopted daughter.
After April is found nearly beaten to death in Endangered (2015), suspicion points toward Cates. Though Cates has a strong alibi, Joe and the county chase him, creating a rippling chain of events that end in the deaths of the father and brothers of Cates. Cates’s mother, Brenda, the malicious mastermind of the family, is sent to prison, where she eventually dies. Though not explicitly stated, it is possible that Brenda was behind the attack on April.
In Vicious Circle (2018), Cates commits many crimes in his search for vengeance against the Picketts and is incarcerated. In Three-Inch Teeth, it is revealed that Cates spent his term in Rawlins planning his revenge against Joe, Marybeth, and the others who he believes destroyed his close-knit family. Hardened by his time in jail, Cates appears even more manipulative and ruthless in Three-Inch Teeth, committing murders with nonchalant ease.
Geographical Context: Wyoming
C. J. Box sets most of the Joe Pickett books in the western state of Wyoming, where he lives. Both the landscape and culture of the state feature prominently in Box’s works, with the author drawing on his personal experience to capture the spirit of the contemporary American West. Twelve Sleep County, the fictional setting of Three-Inch Teeth, is based on the actual county of Ten Sleep in northern Wyoming, while Saddlestring, the county seat, is the name of a real community in the area.
The setting that Box draws on is dominated by the Bighorn Mountains, a spur extending from the Rocky Mountains to the Great Plains. Although grizzly bears are found in Wyoming, their migration to the Bighorn Mountains is considered a recent phenomenon, propelled by an increased need for space. The presence of grizzlies in the area has led to reports of human-animal conflict. Box bases one of the main plots of Three-Inch Teeth on the clashes between humans and grizzly bears in a terrain considered unsuitable for the apex predators.
Other aspects of Wyoming life also feature prominently throughout the novel. Characters often comment on the close-knit nature of the state’s communities, describing Wyoming as “the last remaining state with one degree of separation” (195). While the fact that everybody knows everybody in Wyoming makes characters accountable to each other, it also has implications about people’s privacy and autonomy. Box further touches on the conflicts that arise when a largely rural and small-town economy comes into contact with a highly capitalistic world. Wealthier denizens of the state, as well as rich tourists, appropriate its resources and services without thinking about the interest of the locals. Cates notes that the visitors to the Eagle Mountain Club never bother to learn about the people who serve them dinner and mow their lawns.
Similarly, in their pursuit of animal rights, the Mama Bears—affluent activists from the ultra-rich Wyoming destination of Jackson Hole—ignore the perils that wardens, ranchers, farmers, and fishermen face from wildlife. Therefore, the setting showcases the tensions in the narrative as well as contemporary American society.
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