A Review: Dead Watch by John Sandford

Hardcover: 373 pages
Language: English
Publisher: Putnam Pub Group May 2006
ISBN-10: 0399153543
ISBN-13: 9780399153549




I'm an avid John Sandford fan, especially of his "Prey" series and its main character, Lucas Davenport. In Dead Watch Sandford has created another interesting, though not as complex, main character, Jake Winter. While Winter is smart and diligent, he doesn't have the edge that Davenport has. Still, he is interesting enough to keep you reading. Actually, the most interesting and challenging character in the book is Jake's love interest and estranged wife of a kidnapped politician, Madison Bowe.

Ex-Senator Lincoln Bowe disappears and the White House asks Jake to investigate. Madison is very vocal about her belief that Virginia Governor Arlo Goodman is behind the disappearance. When Bowe's headless corpse is discovered, Jake is under even more pressure to find out what happened. Aided by Madison (and wondering if she may be involved), Jake follows a trail of deception that suggests that the disappearance and murder may be a plot to derail Governor Goodman's ascent to the presidency.

I think Jake has a lot of potential as a main character and hope that Sandford writes another novel featuring him. However, the plot in Dead Watch was rather convoluted, with too many suspects to keep track of. The nature of the murder plot was just too unbelievable and sensational. That said, it still was an interesting read.

Synopsis (from the author's website)

Late afternoon, Virginia, and a woman is on the run. Her husband, a former U.S. Senator named Lincoln Bowe, has been missing for days. Kidnapped? Murdered? She doesn't know, but she thinks she knows who's involved, and why. And that she may be next.

Hours later, a phone rings in the pocket of Jacob Winter. An Army Intelligence veteran, Winter specializes in what he thinks of as forensic bureaucracy. Congress, the Pentagon, the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security – when something goes wrong, Winter kicks over rocks until he finds out what really happened. The White House is his main client, and the chief of staff is on the phone now.

If Bowe isn't located soon, he is told, all hell will break loose.

What Winter doesn't realize is – all hell will break loose anyway. And he will be right in the middle of it. Large forces are at work, men determined to do whatever it takes to achieve unprecedented ends. Before the next few days are out, Winter will discover he has to use every one of his resources not only to prevail... but just to survive.

And so will the nation....

A Review: Phantom Prey by John Sandford

Hardcover: 373 pages
Language: English
Publisher: Putnam Pub Group May 2008
ISBN-10: 0399155007
ISBN-13: 9780399155000




In the 18th book of the "Prey" series, Frances Austin, a wealthy young woman who is into the Goth scene, goes missing. Already working on an important case, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent Lucas Davenport becomes involved in this one when his surgeon wife, Weather, asks him to. Weather just happens to be a friend of Frances' mother, Alyssa. Traces of Frances' blood are found on a wall in her mother's home, but with no body, Lucas can't be positive she is dead. When several other members of the Goth community are found murdered, it becomes less likely that Frances will be found alive.

You've heard the term "follow the money"...that is what Lucas does when he discovers that $50,000 was missing from one of Frances' investment accounts. The trail leads him to Frances' killer, but he believes there is a second person who killed the others. We find out who that killer is before Lucas does, and it's quite disturbing.

No one writes a crime thriller better than John Sandford and he doesn't disappoint with Phantom. This 18th entry in the Prey series still shows plenty of the suspense and originality that has made this series last so long. In my opinion, there's no such thing as a bad Lucas Davenport story.

Synopsis (from the author's website)

Lucas Davenport has had disturbing cases before – but never one quite like this, in the shocking new Prey novel from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author.

John Sandford's most recent Davenport novel, Invisible Prey, was hailed as "one of his best books in recent memory" (Washington Post); "as fresh and entertaining as ever" (Chicago Sun-Times); "rivetingly readable" (Richmond Times-Dispatch). But this time, he's got something quite special in store.

A widow comes home to her large house in a wealthy, exclusive suburb to find blood on the walls, no body – and her college-age daughter missing. She's always known that her daughter ran with a bad bunch. What did she call them – Goths? Freaks is more like it, running around with all that makeup and black clothing, listening to that awful music, so attracted to death. And now this.

But the police can't find the girl, alive or dead, and the widow truly panics. There's someone she knows, a surgeon named Weather Davenport, whose husband is a big deal with the police, and she implores Weather to get her husband directly involved. Lucas gets in only reluctantly – but then when a second Goth is slashed to death in Minneapolis, he starts working it hard. The clues don't seem to add up, though. And then there's the young Goth who keeps appearing and disappearing: Who is she? Where does she come from and, more important, where does she vanish to? And why does Lucas keep getting the sneaking suspicion that there is something else going on here... something very, very bad indeed?

Filled with his brilliant trademark suspense and some of the most interesting characters in thriller fiction, Phantom Prey is further proof that "Sandford is in a class of his own" (Orlando Sentinel).

A Review: Invisible Prey by John Sandford

Hardcover: 388 pages
Language: English
Publisher: Putnam Pub Group May 2007
ISBN-10: 0399154213
ISBN-13: 9780399154218



As always Lucas Davenport, a Special Agent for Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is called in when a situation is too tough for a local police department or too politically sensitive.

The story opens with two women, an elderly heiress and her maid, being brutally murdered in a home in one of St. Paul's elite neighborhoods. Lucas is conducting a very politically sensitive investigation of a local politician who is accused of being involved with a minor. These two very different investigations, a sex scandal and a double murder, ultimately become intertwined.

The 17th installment in the Prey series is more thriller than mystery since the killers are revealed early, with the plot being revealed through the killers' point of view. Davenport unravels their scheme as he immerses himself into the world of art and antiques.

As usual, Sandford has given us a novel that is intelligent and entertaining.

Description (from the author's website)

And it's all true once again about Invisible Prey. This is one of the best Lucas Davenports ever – and one of the most surprising.

In the richest neighbourhood of Minneapolis, two elderly women lie murdered in their home, killed with a pipe, the rooms ransacked, only small items stolen. It's clearly a random break-in by someone looking for money to buy drugs. But as he looks more closely, Davenport begins to wonder if the items are actually so small or the victims so random, if there might not be some invisible agenda at work here. Gradually, a pattern begins to emerge – and it will lead Davenport to somewhere he never expected. Which is too bad, because the killers – and yes, there is more than one of them – the killers are expecting him.

Excerpt:

An anonymous van, some-kind-of-pale, cruised Summit Avenue, windows dark with the coming night. The killers inside watched three teenagers, two boys and a girl, hurrying along the sidewalk like wind-blown leaves. The kids were getting somewhere quick, finding shelter before the storm.

The killers trailed them, saw them off, then turned their faces toward Oak Walk.

The mansion was an architectural remnant of the nineteenth century, red brick with green trim, gloomy and looming in the dying light. Along the wrought-iron fence, well-tended beds of blue and yellow iris, and clumps of pink peonies, were going gray to the eye.

Oak Walk was perched on a bluff. The back of the house looked across the lights of St. Paul, down into the valley of the Mississippi, where the groove of the river had already gone dark. The front faced Summit Avenue; Oak Walk was the second-richest house on the richest street in town.

Six aging burr oaks covered the side yard. In sunlight, their canopies created a leafy glade, with sundials and flagstone walks, charming with moss and violets; but moon shadows gave the yard a menacing aura, now heightened by the lightning that flickered through the incoming clouds.

"Like the Munsters should live there," the bigger of the killers said.

"Like a graveyard," the little one agreed.

The Weather Channel had warned of tornadic events, and the killers could feel a twister in the oppressive heat, the smell of ozone thick in the air.

The summer was just getting started. The last snow slipped into town on May 2, and was gone a day later. The rest of the month had been sunny and warm, and by the end of it, even the ubiquitous paper-pale blondes were showing tan lines.

Now the first of the big summer winds. Refreshing, if it didn't knock your house down.

On the fourth pass, the van turned into the driveway, eased up under the portico, and the killers waited there for a porch light. No light came on. That was good.

They got out of the van, one Big, one Little, stood there for a moment, listening, obscure in the shadows, facing the huge front doors. They were wearing coveralls, of the kind worn by automotive mechanics, and hairnets, and nylon stockings over their faces. Behind them, the van's engine ticked as it cooled. A Wisconsin license plate, stolen from a similar vehicle in a 3M parking lot, was stuck on the back of the van.

Big said, "Let's do it."

Little led the way up the porch steps. After a last quick look around, Big nodded again, and Little pushed the doorbell.

They'd done this before. They were good at it.

A Review: Broken Prey by John Sandford

Hardcover: 390 pages
Language: English
Publisher: Penguin Group USA May 2005
ISBN-10: 0399152725
ISBN-13: 9780399152726





I noted in the previous review that Lucas Davenport has mellowed since becoming a husband and new father, and I have no reason to change that opinion after reading this book. He's a decent guy, but not perfect. However, I kind of miss the edginess he displays in the earlier Prey novels. With that said, this was still an excellent read. No one can devise a complex plot like John Sandford and this book was no different.

I would have liked to get to know the victims; they get killed off without us really knowing anything about them. There's no way to really care about the victims as they are almost an afterthought to the story. Yes, Lucas and his cohorts are frantic to find the killer before there are more victims, but the focus is mostly on the cops and the bad guy.

Sandford introduces some lighter moments, the most entertaining about Davenport's new iPod and his quest to compile a list of the 100 best rock songs ever recorded, which every cop on the force gives him suggestions for. The list is at the end of the book and some I agree with and some I don't. The Piano Man by Billy Joel?! I don't think so!

Synopsis (from the author's website)

Lucas Davenport confronts a living nightmare, in one of the spookiest Prey novels yet from the number-one bestselling author.

"There are reasons why John Sandford's Prey series has been so wildly successful, and they begin with our old friends plot and character," praises the Washington Post. "But in Broken Prey, Sandford has outdone himself. He is at the top of his game. You want to know the only thing wrong with this guy? He makes it look easy."

But there is nothing easy about what Lucas Davenport faces now.

The first body is of a young woman, found on a Minneapolis riverbank, her throat cut, her body scourged and put on display. Whoever did this, Lucas knows, is pushed by brain chemistry, there is something wrong with him. This isn't a bad love affair.

The second body is found a week later, in a farmhouse six miles south. Same condition, same display – except this time it is a man. Nothing to link the two murders, nothing to indicate that the killings end here.

"This guy..." Lucas said. He took a deep breath, let it out as a sigh. "This guy is gonna bust our chops."

And soon he is going to do far, far worse than that.

A suspect emerges early: a man recently released from a prison hospital and who now seems to have cut himself free from his court-imposed ankle bracelet and disappeared. But the more Lucas investigates, the more he wonders: Is this really the man? Could he really have done this all by himself? And where has he gone to, anyway?

And meanwhile, a predator waits....

A Review: Hidden Prey by John Sandford

Hardcover: 352 pages
Language: English
Publisher: Putnam Pub Group May 2004
ISBN-10: 039915180X
ISBN-13: 9780399151804




Hidden Prey begins with the murder of a Russian merchant marine, or so it seems. As this very complex story progresses, it becomes apparent that there is much more to the case. Partnered with a female Russian agent, Lucas Davenport is called in to solve this murder and several others that result in the discovery of a Russian spy ring that has been operating in the Duluth area for 70 years.

Lucas seems to have been toned down in this novel, appearing more mellow since his marriage and subsequent fatherhood. He is still brilliant, however, and maintains his sense of humor. There are some funny lines as Nadya, the Russian agent, struggles to understand American slang.

I didn't feel the ending really tied up the story; there were some loose ends. Perhaps Sandford will tie up those loose ends in his next "Prey" novel. I hope so because I just felt that justice had not really been served.

Description (from the author's website)

Six months ago, Lucas Davenport tackled his first case as a statewide troubleshooter, and he thought that one was plenty strange enough. But that was before the Russian got killed. On the shore of Lake Superior, a man named Rodion Oleshev is found shot dead, three holes in his head and his heart, and though nobody knows why, everybody – the local cops, the FBI, and the Russians themselves – has a theory. And when it turns out he had very high government connections, that's when it hits the fan.

A Russian cop flies in from Moscow, Davenport flies in from Minneapolis, law enforcement and press types swarm the crime scene – and, in the middle of it all, there is another murder. Is there a relationship between the two? What is the Russian cop hiding from Davenport? Is she – yes, it's a woman – a cop at all? Why was the man shot with fifty-year-old bullets? Before he can find the answers, Davenport will have to follow a trail back to another place, another time, and battle the shadows he discovers there – shadows that turn out to be both very real and very deadly.

Crisp, dynamic, constantly surprising, richly satisfying, once more this is "vintage Sandford."

A Review: Rules of Prey by John Sandford

Hardcover: 317 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult (July 24, 1989)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399134654
ISBN-13: 978-0399134654




Rules of Prey is the first in the "Prey" series featuring Minneapolis police detective Lucas Davenport and is also on my list in the 2009 First in a Series challenge. Lucas is brilliant and rich, having earned a good sum of money developing computer games. He's cocky and rather cold, but when you scratch his surface you find that underneath his cold exterior lies some sensitivity and warmth. Sandford has created a character who is likable and intriguing.

In Rules, Lucas is hunting a killer who has a list of well-thought out rules he follows in order to avoid capture. He leaves a note at each crime scene with one of his rules on it. Sort of an in your face taunt to those pursuing him.

Never kill anyone you know.

Never have a motive.

Never follow a discernible pattern.

Never carry a weapon after it has been used.

Isolate yourself from random discovery.

Beware of leaving physical evidence.

There were more. He built them into a challenge.

We are introduced to the killer at the beginning of the story, which allows us to follow him around to each crime scene and to know his thought processes. We also get to know Lucas...as a ladies man, a crime solver, video game inventor and all around tough guy. A hero you will love in spite of his flaws, and he does have a few. That's what makes him believable.

Synopsis (from the author's website)

The murderer was intelligent. He was a member of the bar. He derived rules based on professional examination of actual cases: Never kill anyone you know. Never have a motive. Never follow a discernible pattern. Never carry a weapon after it has been used. Beware of leaving physical evidence. There were more. He built them into a challenge. He was mad, of course . . .

The killer's name is Louis Vullion, a low-key young attorney who, under the camouflage of normalcy, researches his next female victim until the pressure within him forces him to reach out and "collect" her. Plying his secret craft with the tactics of a games master, he has gripped the Twin Cities in a storm of terror more fierce than any Minnesota winter.

It is after the third murder that Lucas Davenport is called in. It is the opinion of his colleagues that everything about the lieutenant is a little different, and they are right – in the computer games he invents and sells, in the Porsche he drives to work, in the quality of the women he attracts, in his single-minded pursuit of justice. The only member of the department's Office of Special Intelligence, Davenport prefers to work alone, parallel with Homicide, and there is something about this serial killer that he quickly understands. The man who signs himself "maddog" in taunting notes to the police is no textbook sociopath; he has a perverse playfulness that makes him kill for the sheer contest of it. He is a player.

Which means that Davenport will have to put all his mental strength – and physical courage – on the line to learn to think like the killer. For the only way to beat the maddog is at his own hellish game. . .

A Review: Naked Prey by John Sandford

Hardcover: 359 pages
Publisher: Putnam Pub Group May 2004
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1417801670
ISBN-13: 9781417801671

Naked Prey is the fourteenth Prey novel in as many years. I’ve read each one and have not been disappointed yet. Lucas Davenport, now a Director with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, continues to be a fascinating character. Tall and handsome, he’s not perfect. Prior to his marriage, he had his fair share of women, occasionally must deal with clinical depression and isn’t above manipulating the media to advance his cause. On the other side, he is brilliant, rich (from a computer software business he sold for big bucks), and supremely determined. He always gets his man (or woman).

Description from the author’s website:

Lucas Davenport finds some changes – and some nasty surprises – in store, in the chilling new novel by the number-one-bestselling author.

After thirteen years and thirteen Prey novels, John Sandford's writing is as fresh as ever. His last book, Mortal Prey, was "a model of the genre" (People) and "the cop novel of the year" (Kirkus Reviews). In the words of the Washington Post: "John Sandford does everything right."

Now, in Naked Prey, he puts Lucas Davenport through some changes. His old boss, Rose Marie Roux, has moved up to the state level and taken Lucas with her, creating a special troubleshooter job for him for the cases that are too complicated or politically touchy for others to handle. In addition, Lucas is married now, and a new father, all of which is fine with him: he doesn't mind being a family man. But he is a little worried. For every bit of peace you get, you have to pay – and he's waiting for the bill.

It comes in the form of two people found hanging from a tree in the woods of northern Minnesota. What makes the situation particularly sensitive is that the bodies are of a black man and a white woman, and they're naked. "Lynching" is the word that everybody's trying not to say – but, as Lucas begins to discover, in fact the murders are nothing like what they appear to be, and they are not the end of it. There is worse to come – much, much worse.

Filled with rich characterization and exceptional drama that are his hallmarks, this is Sandford's most suspenseful novel yet. "You know life is good when you have a new Lucas Davenport thriller to escape into," writes the Chicago Tribune, and Naked Prey proves it again.

A Review: Mortal Prey by John Sandford

Hardcover: 354 pages
Publisher: Putnam Pub Group May 2002
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399148639
ISBN-13: 9780399148637



John Sandford is one of my favorite authors. His "Prey" series, featuring Minneapolis supercop, Lucas Davenport, never disappoints. As quoted in the Chicago Tribune, "You know life is good when you have a new Lucas Davenport thriller to escape into."

This is the 13th installment of Sandford's popular "Prey" series. Our villainess, Clara Rinker is an evil, ruthless woman who is the best hit woman in the business. But there is a side of her that you can't help but feel sorry for...even Lucas has a soft spot for Clara. Abused as a child, she does what she has to do to survive. Whether it's dancing nude, running her own bar, or killing for hire, she does it with expertise.

If I had to offer one criticism, it would be that the ending was almost like an afterthought. After page after page of suspense and pursuit, what could have been an exciting climax to the story was dealt with in a mere 14 pages.

Synopsis--from the author's website:

Years ago, Lucas Davenport almost died at the hands of Clara Rinker, a pleasant, soft-spoken, low-key Southerner, and the best hitwoman in the business. Now retired and living in Mexico, she nearly dies herself when a sniper kills her boyfriend, the son of a local druglord, and while the boy's father vows vengeance, Rinker knows something he doesn't: The boy wasn't the target – she was – and now she is going to have to disappear to find the killer herself. The FBI and DEA draft Davenport to help track her down, and with his fiancée deep in wedding preparations, he's really just as happy to go – but he has no idea what he's getting into. For Rinker is as unpredictable as ever, and between her, her old bosses in the St. Louis mob, the Mexican druglord, and the combined, sometimes warring, forces of U.S. law enforcement, this is one case that will get more dangerous as it goes along. And when the crossfire comes, anyone standing in the middle won't stand a chance....