CJ.Box's top 10 US crime novelists who 'own' their territory
From Carl Hiaasen's Florida to Sara Paretsky's Chicago, novelist CJ Box identifies the US's best criminal tour guides

by CJ Box. guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 December 2009

Warshawski's beat ... Downtown Chicago at night. Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar

CJ Box's series of Joe Pickett novels, as well as standalone books, have made him the winner of the Anthony Award, the Prix Calibre 38, the Macavity Award, the Gumshow Award, the Barry Award and the Edgar Award for the Best novel of 2008. US bestsellers, they have been translated into 21 languages. Box lives with his family outside Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Visit his website at www.cjbox.net. Three Weeks to Say Goodbye, hailed by Harlan Coben as "a non-stop thrill ride" is his UK debut, and is published this week.

"The dirty little secret about the very best contemporary crime novels is that it often doesn't matter much who did it and why, but where the story is set. Solving the crime is simply a vehicle to travel through the territory. Reading the best crime novels about specific locations by authors who live there and own their home turf is like visiting with the ultimate know-it-all guide who moonlights as a voyeur.

"I write thrillers set in the Rocky Mountains because I want to shine a clear-eyed light on the region, its issues and people. That light can alternate between loving and harsh, but it must provide clarity. My latest novel, Three Weeks to Say Goodbye, is based on a true story in which a young couple is ordered to return their adopted baby to certain danger. It's set in Denver and Montana. When you read it I want you to feel like you're there – struggling, suffering, and plotting righteous revenge with the characters while the snow falls and the mountains loom over your shoulder and your life and hopes plunge into a death spiral. And feel, once the book is over, that you've been someplace very real."
Read his list of ten at The Guardian online.