Saddle up for a wild ride (pun intended). The third title in Cox’s series finds United States Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Nick Tanner dispatched to the swamps of Mississippi on a job that entails trading 243 endangered turtles with a wild reptile dealer named Johnny Chang. When the deal doesn't go down as planned, Tanner—and another undercover agent already in place— team up to shut Chang's operation down. Cold-Blooded Trade is an assured crime thriller alive with vivid characters, wicked plot twists, and jolts of action, set against a deadly, evocative milieu that finds Tanner “belly-deep in swamp water, boots sucked hard into the muck, all the while keeping a wary eye for cottonmouths and leeches.”

Cox does a stellar job at penning intriguing characters that readers will connect to. Tanner leaps off the page,a doting father and a proud pet owner with a job that brings excitement at every turn. That pet is a highlight—a blind bobcat named Ray (as in Charles)— as is Tanner’s unique beat, which gives Cox the chance to plot out a thriller that mixes a smart procedural with The Crocodile Hunter. The hero’s personal life is engaging, too, with him balancing wildlife trafficking busts gone wrong with trying to get to his daughter’s gymnastics meet.

While it’s best to start with book one in the series for full clarity on Tanner's backstory, new readers will be able to dive right into the “slimy, green-black muck” of this entry’s gator-holes. Full of witty banter, the wildest of wildlife, and action-packed encounters, Cold-Blooded Trade is a polished, sharply written thriller that never stops until its satisfying conclusion. Animal lovers especially will find themselves invested in Tanner's investigation and turning the pages to find out how it all ends.

Takeaway: This standout procedural sends a wildlife agent into the Mississippi muck.

Great for fans of: C.J. Box, Pamela Beason’s Endangered.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A