Giveaway Days: BACK OF BEYOND by C.J. Box

Once again I've accumulated a stack of new books in need of homes. How to give away? How to find givees?

Not having an overall theme to suggest some riddles or trivia questions for the giveaways hampered me for a while. I'm not an original thinker; my ideas need something to hang their collective hat on. But at last I've come up with a game I'm calling 'Who Dat?'

Here's how it works: Each day during giveaway days, I'm going to post a sentence or two written by a well-known author. I'll try to find excerpts that will be recognizable by style or by turn of phrase or even by a setting or a character's name. Doesn't mean it will be easy, particularly if you're not familiar with the author's work. But go on, guess anyway!

Readers can leave a comment including their best guesses. All correct guesses go into the ever-popular hat and a winner will be drawn at random. For example, suppose I used this excerpt: "It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window." Your response would be to leave a comment shouting, "Raymond Chandler! Raymond Chandler." And your name would go into the hat and the next day I would report who won whichever book was the giveaway of the day. Easy-peasy? Oh, yeah. (Note: everyone is eligible for this giveaway. That includes readers beyond the borders of the USA; prior winners; friends; enemies; and those folks beyond my ability to label and index. You can even win more than once, if the force is with you. Be certain I can find you via email in case you win, or that you check back here daily to see if you won.)

So: The first book I'm giving away is a hot, brand-spanking new ARC from bestselling author C.J. Box, BACK OF BEYOND. A bit about the story:

Cody Hoyt, while a brilliant cop, is an alcoholic struggling with two months of sobriety when his friend Hank Winters is found burned to death in a remote mountain cabin in Montana. At first it looks like the suicide of a man who’s fallen off the wagon, but Cody knows Hank better than that. As Cody takes a closer look at the scene of his friend’s death, it becomes apparent that someone murdered him and tried to make it look like something else.  After years of bad behavior with his department, he’s in no position to be investigating a homicide, but Cody will stop at nothing to find his killer.

When clues found at the scene link the murderer to an outfitter leading tourists on a spectacular multi-day wilderness horseback trip into the remote corners of Yellowstone National Park—a pack trip that includes his son Justin—Cody is desperate to get on their trail and stop the killer before the group heads into the wild. Among the tourists is fourteen-year-old Gracie Sullivan, an awkward but intelligent loner who begins to suspect that someone in their party is dangerous.

In a fatal cat and mouse game, where it becomes apparent the murderer is somehow aware of Cody’s every move, Cody treks into the wilderness to stop a killer hell bent on destroying the only thing in his life he cares about.  With breathtaking pace and vivid details, BACK OF BEYOND takes you into one of the most remote places on earth, and the heart of danger.

You know you want it, need it, got to got to have it. And to have a chance at getting this oh-so-new book, just leave a comment telling me WHO DAT wrote the following:

"Early that morning he had picked up a bail skip for Wee Willie Bimstine in Opelousas and was about to transport him back to New Orleans, when the skip began jerking against the D-ring anchored on the floor of the Caddy, his face twisted with visceral pain, threatening to soil himself and the convertible if he wasn't allowed to use the bathroom. Clete cuffed him to a pipe next to the toilet in a filling station and waited outside. In less than two minutes the skip managed to put seventy-five cents in a sexual-enhancement dispenser, smear his wrist with a desensitizing lubricant, slip the cuff, and escape out a window."

UPDATE 7/19/2011: THIS ROUND OF THE CONTEST IS CLOSED.