The good news is that Joe Pickett has his job back. The bad news is that Wyoming's Twelve Sleep County game warden is only days away from the most dangerous predators he's ever faced. Joe's working with Katelyn Hamm, his counterpart in adjacent Shell County, to trace a drone operator whose aerial acrobatics have been stampeding elk and deer to their deaths. Their investigation will put them both on a collision course not only with the FBI but also with the Wolf Pack, a remorseless quartet of killers.

Joe has good reason to dislike Dallas Cates - his eighteen-year-old foster daughter, April, has run off with him. And then comes worse news: the body of a girl has been found in a ditch along the highway – barely alive, the victim of blunt force trauma. It is April, and the doctors don't know if she'll recover. Cates denies having anything to do with it - but Joe knows in his gut who's responsible.

Jack Reacher hits the pavement and sticks out his thumb. He plans to follow the sun on an epic trip across America, from Maine to California. He doesn't get far. On a country road deep in the New England woods, he sees a sign to a place he has never been: the town where his father was born. He thinks, What's one extra day? He takes the detour. 

Everything about the ranch is a mystery. Rumours abound about the millionaire who owns it, the women who live with him, and the sudden disappearances. Joe Pickett is tasked by the governor to find the truth. There are two other men living up at the ranch. One is a stone-cold killer who takes an instant dislike to Joe. The first man doesn't frighten him. But the second is another story entirely.

Butch Roberson was known by all as a local business owner, a hard worker, and a family man. Then he disappeared, leaving two dead bodies in his wake. Now he's known as a murderer - though Joe Pickett cannot believe someone as gentle as Butch could have the instincts of a killer.