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* TokenGoodCop: Deputy Mike Reed is the only Saddlestring field officer who is neither a TriggerHappy brute nor corrupt in books 3-12. Once he is elected sheriff in book 13, things finally start improving.



* TokenGoodCop: Deputy Mike Reed is the only Saddlestring field officer who is neither a TriggerHappy brute nor corrupt in books 3-12. Once he is elected sheriff in book 13, things finally start improving.
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* TokenGoodCop: Deputy Mike Reed is the only Saddlestring field officer who is neither a TriggerHappy brute nor corrupt in books 3-12. Once he is elected sheriff in book 13, things finally start improving.
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* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Hank and Arlen Scarlett]] are involved in conspiracies full of corruption, murder, and sexual assault across both seasons but have yet to be killed or arrested by the finale, although, with a witness being ready to testify against [[spoiler:Hank]], the guiltier of the pair, he may be facing an impending KarmaHoudiniWarranty.
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* AdaptedOut: While most of the Scarlets are bigger characters than in the books, Wyatt is the exception, as he's never even mentioned in the show.
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[[Seies/JoePickett A television adaptation]] premiered in 2022, starring Creator/MichaelDorman, Creator/JuliannaGuill, and Creator/MustafaSpeaks as Joe, Marybeth, and Nate. The plotlines and characters are fairly true to the books, although there is some noticeable AdaptationDistillation (season 2 adapts events from books 8, 10, and 12 in a TwoLinesNoWaiting way manner). The show's tropes are also listed here.


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[[Seies/JoePickett A television adaptation]] premiered in 2022, starring Creator/MichaelDorman, Creator/JuliannaGuill, and Creator/MustafaSpeaks as Joe, Marybeth, and Nate. The plotlines and characters are fairly true to the books, although there is some noticeable AdaptationDistillation (season 1 adapts parts of books 1 and 3 and season 2 adapts events from books 8, 10, and 12 in a TwoLinesNoWaiting way manner).manner). The show was canceled after two seasons. The show's tropes are also listed here.

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* DoctorsDisgracefulDemotion: Dr. Eric Logue; the BigBad in Trophy Hunt. A former army surgeon, he was dishonorably discharged from the army and sent to a military prison for conducting unnecessary surgery on prisoners of war.
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* IconicSequelCharacter: {{Deuteragonist}} Nate Romanowski debuts in ''Winterkill'' (book 3), and Governor Rulon, the BigGood of much of the series, only shows up four books later in ''Free Fire''. Both appear in season 1 of the television adaptation.
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* ReligiousBruiser: The Brothers Grim are two of the deadliest non-ex-military fighters in the series, and each of them carries half of ''Literature/TheBible'', with Caleb keeping the Old Testament with him while Camish carries the New Testament.
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* SparedByTheAdaptation:
** [[spoiler:Vern]] doesn't suffer a VigilanteExecution at [[spoiler:Nate]]'s hands the night after the poker-chip killings wrap up like he did in ''Blood Trail''.
** [[spoiler:Big Merle]] survives an attempt on his life during Nemeck's purge of former Mark V operators. In the climax of ''Cold Wind'', he is GuttedLikeAFish the moment Nemeck first strikes.
** [[spoiler:The Brothers Grim]] back down from their MexicanStandoff with Joe and Nate rather than commit SuicideByCop like in ''Nowhere to Run''.
** [[spoiler:Shenandoah]] survives the entirety of season 2 rather than being reluctantly shot (and killed) by Joe in a failed effort to [[spoiler:keep her from killing Randy Pope]].
** [[spoiler:Diane Shober, Melissa Left Hand's literary counterpart as TheProtectorate for the Brothers Grim]], goes into hiding with some of Nate's old comrades at the end of ''Nowhere to Run''. She later vanishes and is presumed dead after Nemeck attacks her new protectors in ''Force of Nature''. Here, Nemeck's purge has already begun when she first appears, and she returns to her old life after parting ways with [[spoiler:the Grims.]]
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* IronicEcho: In the pilot, after stealing Joe's gun as Joe writes him a ticket for poaching, Ote Keely gloats about how he could kill Joe, and if Joe were found dead with a gun next to him, people would just assume it was a suicide brought on by family and financial pressures. Joe grabs his gun back and throws Ote's words back at him threateningly while holding him at gunpoint before letting him go.
* ItNeverGetsAnyEasier: Discussed in the penultimate episode of season 2. The poker chip killer admits to having run home crying after killing Dan Garrett and says that the revulsion actually got worse with each subsequent killing (although [[spoiler:she is seen gloating a bit before killing her fifth victim]]), but insists it was necessary to keep killing due to Garrett and the others' misdeeds.
* PregnantBadass: Jeannie Keely is seven months pregnant, but when she finds out that [[spoiler:Wacey]] (who is threatening her at gunpoint) killed her husband, she punches him in the throat hard enough to incapacitate him for ten seconds as she runs off.
* ProperlyParanoid: Nate and his old friend Robbie Jax both live in heavily isolated woodland areas, hiding from their former black ops commander John Nemeck, who has committed crimes he doesn't want any of his men spreading. Nate is nearly assassinated soon after getting on the news due to a murder investigation, while some of their friends living in less isolated areas are killed, proving those concerns right.


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* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After Nate narrowly saves his fellow former operator Merle from Nemeck's assassins, Merle declines Nate's suggestion that they investigate what Nemeck is up to, saying that he intends to get out of the area fast and Nate should think of doing the same.
* ShockJock: Outdoorsman Buck Lothar hosts a radio show where he badmouths Joe's involvement in the Miller's Weasel scandal that led to environmentalism triumphing over economic concerns. Buck later admits this was mainly a gimmick to draw in more listeners and sell more merchandise, and while Joe has mixed feelings about this, he and Buck become FireForgedFriends while working a manhunt together, with Buck offering to retract his previous insults on his next show.
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* ImpersonatingAnOfficer: [[spoiler:A U.S. Marshal who shows up to take custody of murder suspect Nate is really a hitman working for Nate’s old black ops superior.]] After the deception is revealed, Barnum lambasts his deputies for not checking the man’s credentials.
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* {{Foreshadowing}}: Vern blackmailing Barnum over how he [[spoiler:impregnated a Native American minor in season 1 makes it a little less surprising when season 2 reveals Barnum is part of a group of {{Serial Rapist}}s whose victims include Native American teenagers.]].
* HaveYouToldAnyoneElse: ''Two'' season one characters tell villains they are keeping dangerous information secret without even being asked that question. Remarkably, neither is murdered.
** In "The Most Hated Man in Twelve Sleep", Jeannie Keely tells [[spoiler:Wacey]] that she knows he hired her late husband Ote for a job, and that she hasn't told anyone, but she and her kids need whatever [[spoiler:Wacey]] owed Ote. [[spoiler:Wacey]] refuses to pay her anything, reveals that he killed Ote, and pulls out a gun but spares her life after ordering her to leave town.
** A flashback in "The Killing Fields" shows [[spoiler:Wacey himself telling Vern about the endangered species he has found living on land Vern wants to build a pipeline over, then saying that he wanted to report this to Vern before letting anyone else know in a BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord manner. Vern doesn't mind, since he needs ''someone'' to kill those animals before the pipeline gets there and can meet Wacey’s demands without much trouble.]]
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* ExactWords: In "A Call for Help", Joe asks Vern why Sheriff Barnum allowed a MiscarriageOfJustice ten years ago and is told that Barnum was on vacation and only came back after one of his deputies mishandled the investigation into [[spoiler:an alleged gang-rape committed by a hunting party]], implying that he never knew what happened. [[spoiler:What Vern either doesn't know or deliberately omits is that Barnum was on vacation ''with'' the hunting party and was one of the rapists.]]
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* SpottingTheThread: In season two, Missy is the one to point out how [[spoiler:there is a teenage girl's pink backpack in a guys' weekend hunting trip photo the victims took, leading to the realization that the victims were rapists.]]

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[[Seies/JoePickett A television adaptation]] premiered in 2022, starring Creator/MichaelDorman, Creator/JuliannaGuill, and Creator/MustafaSpeaks as Joe, Marybeth, and Nate. The plotlines and characters are fairly true to the books, although there is some noticeable AdaptationDistillation (season 2 adapts events from books 8, 10, and 12 in a TwoLinesNoWaiting way manner).


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[[Seies/JoePickett A television adaptation]] premiered in 2022, starring Creator/MichaelDorman, Creator/JuliannaGuill, and Creator/MustafaSpeaks as Joe, Marybeth, and Nate. The plotlines and characters are fairly true to the books, although there is some noticeable AdaptationDistillation (season 2 adapts events from books 8, 10, and 12 in a TwoLinesNoWaiting way manner). \n\n The show's tropes are also listed here.



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* CompositeCharacter:
** The governor who Joe tickets for fishing without a license and his BigGood successor are combined into one governor in the show.
** Deputy Cricket Ludlow plays similar plot roles to both FriendOnTheForce Mike Reed and Nate's girlfriend Alisha (who still appears in the show, but with an AgeLift, slight AdaptationalJobChange, and lack of any apparent connection to Nate) from the books.
* RaceLift: Nate and Vern are black, while in the earlier books, the postmaster's family are Saddlestring's only black residents.
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* AdaptationalVillainy:
** In ''Open Season'', after Ote Keely threatens Joe at gunpoint over a poaching citation, he hands over the gun, content at having made his threat, but in the show, he seems to be considering actually killing Joe before Joe snatches the gun back. He, Kyle, and Calvin also [[spoiler:take a job to kill the endangered Miller’s Weasels in order to keep the valuable land they live on from being made a nature preserve, and Ote cruelly sings "Pop Goes the Weasel" while dropping a bomb down one of their holes. In the book, Ote, Kyle, and Calvin weren't involved in the slaughter and merely stumbled across some surviving weasels afterward]].
** Hank Scarlet can be shady and coarse throughout ''In Plain Sight'', but he ultimately shows himself to be an honorable man who is furious about a {{False Friend}}’s violent actions against both the Pickett Family and a herd of elk. In the show, he is [[spoiler:complicit in the cover-up of Wacey killing endangered animals, kills the beloved stock of two emu farmers to try and force them off their land, leads a group of {{Serial Rapist}}s, and is more than willing to kill the Picketts to cover up his crimes]].
** Julie Scarlett is a LovableAlphaBitch in the book ''In Plain Sight'' but a straight-up AlphaBitch in the show, especially in season 1. To be fair, a combination of an AgeLift, an AdaptationalEarlyAppearance, and the AdaptationalVillainy of her older relatives gives her an excuse for being less mature than her literary counterpart.
** Downplayed with the murder victims from season 2, which adapts the events of ''Blood Trail'' and makes some already bad people even worse. While they are guilty of [[spoiler:gang-raping Shenandoah]] in both versions, [[spoiler:in the book they acted while drunk and tried to forget about what happened afterward, with Shenandoah feeling that some of them are less guilty than others. In the show, the whole group always planned to drug and rape her and continue raping girls for the next decade]].
** Downplayed with [[spoiler:Sheriff Barnum]]. In the books, he engaged in sexual relationships of an extremely QuestionableConsent variety (albeit as OffStageVillainy), helped cover up [[spoiler:the rape of Shenandoah Yellowcalf]], and is engaged in lots of other dishonest behavior that doesn't get adapted. However, he never went as far as to shoot a teenager who was threatening to expose his crimes, unlike in the show.
* AndYourLittleDogToo: In season 2, when John Nemeck sends his assassins after Nate and the others who quit his black ops unit, he also includes Nate’s friend Joe Pickett and girlfriend Cricket on his literal hit list.
* ButForMeItWasTuesday: [[spoiler:When Shenandoah describes how she first began killing her former rapists after ten years (during which time they raped many other girls), one thing that upsets her is how Dan Garrett, the first one she killed, didn't see the danger coming because he didn't recognize her]].
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!!Tropes specific to the TV adaptation
* AdaptationalBadass: [[spoiler:Wacey]], TheHeavy, has elements of a PaperTiger in the first book (ambushing Ote Keely and his friends while they are sleeping). In season 1, he faces and defeats four men in a relatively fair gunfight and, after running out of bullets, shoots a fleeing Ote in the back with a bow while they are both riding galloping horses.
* AdaptationalEarlyAppearance: Nate, Merle, the Brothers Grim, the Scarlet Family, Luke Brueggman, Klamath Moore, Shenandoah, Bud Longbrake, Buck Lothar, Alisha Whiteplume, Randy Pope, Dave Farkus, the governor, and several other characters from books 3-12 debut in the first two seasons.
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[[Seies/JoePickett A television adaptation]] premiered in 2022, starring Creator/MichaelDorman, Creator/JuliannaGuill, and Creator/MustafaSpeaks as Joe, Marybeth, and Nate. The plotlines and characters are fairly true to the books, although there is some noticeable AdaptationDistillation (season 2 adapts events from books 8, 10, and 12 in a TwoLinesNoWaiting way manner).

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* SnipeHunt: This trope is referenced in ''Stone Cold'' when Joe is in a neighboring district and asks two hunters well known for poaching what they're hunting, they snidely answer "snipes" and Joe responds that he knows that old trick as a way of telling them he's not going to put up with their crap like the usual warden does. ([[https://wgfd.wyo.gov/News/Upland-game-bird,-small-game-seasons-open-Sept-1 Wyoming]] does have [[AluminumChristmasTrees a snipe season]], but the context--and probably the habitat, equipment, and time of year--made it obvious they were being smartasses.)

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* SnipeHunt: This trope is referenced in ''Stone Cold'' when Joe is in a neighboring district and asks two hunters well known for poaching what they're hunting, they snidely answer "snipes" and Joe responds that he knows that old trick as a way of telling them he's not going to put up with their crap like the usual warden does. ([[https://wgfd.wyo.gov/News/Upland-game-bird,-small-game-seasons-open-Sept-1 Wyoming]] does have [[AluminumChristmasTrees a snipe season]], season, but the context--and probably the habitat, equipment, and time of year--made it obvious they were being smartasses.)

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* CorruptHick: In the first novel, Bud Barnum has been Sheriff of Twelve Sleeps County for 20 years. He gets involved in a scheme with a CorruptCorporateExecutive which Joe brings crashing down around his ears. This causes Barnum to lose the election and his position as sheriff in the next novel. Reduced from a man of influence to a nobody, he spends several books brooding and plotting revenge on Joe. His schemes eventually get him killed.


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* SmallTownTyrant: In the first novel, Bud Barnum has been Sheriff of Twelve Sleeps County for 20 years. He gets involved in a scheme with a CorruptCorporateExecutive which Joe brings crashing down around his ears. This causes Barnum to lose the election and his position as sheriff in the next novel. Reduced from a man of influence to a nobody, he spends several books brooding and plotting revenge on Joe. His schemes eventually get him killed.

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Not a trope


* Sandbox/ApparentlyUnrelatedMurders: In ''Blood Trail'', it looks as if there is a SerialKiller targeting hunters. However, Joe eventually discovers that there is a connection between the victims aside from hunting. They were all members of a specific hunting party 12 years ago, and the murders all connect to an event that occurred on that trip.



* RapeAndRevenge: What is ultimately revealed to be the motive behind the Sandbox/ApparentlyUnrelatedMurders in ''Blood Trail''.

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* RapeAndRevenge: What is ultimately revealed to be the motive behind the Sandbox/ApparentlyUnrelatedMurders murders in ''Blood Trail''.
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The Cheerleader is no longer a trope


* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Joe and Marybeth's biological daughters Sheridan and Lucy. Sheridan, the elder, is athletic, outdoorsy, something of a loner and an apprentice falconer. Lucy is popular, extremely social and into fashion. Sheridan even calls Lucy a "girly girl" when she is irritated with her, and despairs that she might become a [[TheCheerleader cheerleader]].

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* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Joe and Marybeth's biological daughters Sheridan and Lucy. Sheridan, the elder, is athletic, outdoorsy, something of a loner and an apprentice falconer. Lucy is popular, extremely social and into fashion. Sheridan even calls Lucy a "girly girl" when she is irritated with her, and despairs that she might become a [[TheCheerleader cheerleader]].cheerleader.
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* RoguishPoacher: Zigzagged with Ote Keely, a murder victim in the first book. Ote poaches deer, elk, and moose out of season and out of the areas where he has a tag to do so. He claims that this is to feed his large and poor family, which is true to an extent, but Joe notices that Ote also kills trophy animals that he can sell the body parts of. The book begins with Joe writing Ote a ticket, only for Ote to steal Joe's weapon and hold him at gunpoint, before giving it back with a smirk.
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* DoubleTap: In ''Stone Cold'', the last person Whip and Nate shot and stuffed in a bodybag turns out to be NotQuiteDead when he sits up in the back of their van. After a brief moment of panic, Whip makes sure by putting two bullets in his head.
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* TaintedTobacco: In ''In Plain Sight'', J.W. Keely murders a prisoner by smuggling him a can of chewing tobacco laced with cyanide.
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* CallBack: In ''Savage Run'', Joe finds the legendry secret path the Native Americans used to cross the supposedly impassable Savage Run canyon more than a century ago to escape the cavalry. Near the top of the path, he finds a doll dropped by one the Indian children and untouched since. Eleven books later in ''Breaking Point'', Joe is desperately searching for the path so he can escape an oncoming wildfire. He manages to locate the path when he spots the doll.

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* CallBack: In ''Savage Run'', Joe finds the legendry legendary secret path the Native Americans used to cross the supposedly impassable Savage Run canyon more than a century ago to escape the cavalry. Near the top of the path, he finds a doll dropped by one of the Indian children and untouched since. Eleven books later in ''Breaking Point'', Joe is desperately searching for the path so he can escape an oncoming wildfire. He manages to locate the path when he spots the doll.
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# ''Long Range'' (2020)



* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: In ''Endangered', when Joe finds out that the Cates' three sons are named Bull, Timber and Dallas, he wonders exactly what kind of crazy white trash he is dealing with.

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* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: In ''Endangered', ''Endangered'', when Joe finds out that the Cates' three sons are named Bull, Timber and Dallas, he wonders exactly what kind of crazy white trash he is dealing with.

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