“Field of Prey” by John Sandford (Putnam US / Simon & Schuster UK)

24 books in, series still firing on all cylinders…

The night after the fourth of July, Layton Carlson Jr., of Red Wing, Minnesota, finally got lucky. And unlucky.

He’d picked the perfect spot to lose his virginity to his girlfriend, an abandoned farmyard in the middle of cornfields: nice, private, and quiet. The only problem was… something smelled bad – like, really bad. He mentioned it to a county deputy he knew, and when the cop took a look, he found a body stuffed down a cistern. And then another, and another.

By the time Lucas Davenport was called in, the police were up to fifteen bodies and counting. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, when Lucas began to investigate, he made some disturbing discoveries of his own. The victims had been killed over a great many years, one every summer, regular as clockwork. How could this have happened without anybody noticing?

Because one thing was for sure: the killer had to live close by. He was probably even someone they saw every day…

It really is quite impressive, the fact that this is the 24th book featuring Lucas Davenport (also known as the Prey Series) and it is so very good. Add to that the fact that Sandford is also writing the Virgil Flowers spin-off series as well (each gets a new book each year, for the past seven or eight years), and you start to realise just how talented and disciplined Sandford is as an author. I have read all of the Prey novels, and each one has been at the very least great and gripping. Field of Prey is no exception, but this time you can also add harrowing and intense. A great addition to the series.

“Silken Prey” by John Sandford (Putnam/Simon & Schuster)

Murder, scandal, political espionage, and an extremely dangerous woman. Lucas Davenport’s going to be lucky to get out of this one alive.

Very early one morning, a Minnesota political fixer answers his doorbell. The next thing he knows, he’s waking up on the floor of a moving car, lying on a plastic sheet, his body wet with blood. When the car stops, a voice says, “Hey, I think he’s breathing,” and another voice says, “Yeah? Give me the bat.” And that’s the last thing he knows.   

Davenport is investigating another case when the trail leads to the man’s disappearance, then — very troublingly — to the Minneapolis police department, then — most troublingly of all — to a woman who could give Machiavelli lessons. She has very definite ideas about the way the world should work, and the money, ruthlessness, and sheer will to make it happen.

No matter who gets in the way.

I’m a huge fan of Sandford’s Minnesota-based crime thrillers. In fact, I would say that he’s probably my favourite thriller author bar none. Silken Prey is the 23rd novel in his Lucas Davenport series, and the series just keeps firing on all cylinders. This time, Sandford turns his attention to politics, which always offers new and ‘exciting’ ways in which an investigation can become muddled, dangerous, or even impossible. Lucas is tasked by the Democratic governor to investigate what appears to be a political framing of the Republican Senator. Making things really tricky, of course, is the fact that they are all in the middle of the election. Party politics, dirty tricks, extreme suspicion, and a deadly killer (or two) operating on the sidelines? This is Davenport. He can handle it. Maybe…

“Stolen Prey” by John Sandford (Putnam)

A family massacred, a possible money laundering scheme, rampaging hitmen…

Lucas Davenport has seen many terrible murder scenes. This is one of the worst. In the small Minnesota town of Wayzata, an entire family has been killed — husband, wife, two daughters, dogs.

There’s something about the scene that pokes at Lucas’s cop instincts — it looks an awful lot like the kind of scorched-earth retribution he’s seen in drug killings sometimes. But this is a seriously upscale town, and the husband was an executive vice president at a big bank. It just doesn’t seem to fit.

Until it does. And where it leads Lucas will take him into the darkest nightmare of his life.

This is just a quick review. Stolen Prey is the 22nd novel in Sandford’s Prey/Lucas Davenport series, and it’s another strong installment – though not the strongest. It shows off Sandford’s skill for great pacing and prose, although I think it’s possible the author was trying to cram a little too much into the novel, which gave it a rather meandering feel to it. It doesn’t “fail” as a thriller at all, and it was still gripping and engaging, but I think Sandford has written stronger novels in the past.

“Buried Prey” by John Sandford (Berkley/Simon & Schuster)

A case from Lucas’s past comes back to haunt him

A house demolition provides an unpleasant surprise for Minneapolis-the bodies of two girls, wrapped in plastic. It looks like they’ve been there a long time. Lucas Davenport knows exactly how long.

In 1985, Davenport was a young cop with a reputation for recklessness, and the girls’ disappearance was a big deal. His bosses ultimately declared the case closed, but he never agreed with that. Now that he has a chance to investigate it all over again, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: It wasn’t just the bodies that were buried. It was the truth.

Some secrets just can’t stay buried.

In Buried Prey, the 21st thriller featuring Minnesota detective Lucas Davenport, we finally get to see the detective as he was at the start of his career, as the first case he worked as a detective rears its head once again. Overruled at the time, Lucas sees this as an opportunity to finally discover the truth of what happened to the two girls, which leads him to recall the earlier case, in the form of an extended flash-back. This novel is yet another great addition to the series, adding more detail to Lucas’s back-story. I am continually impressed by Sandford’s ability to keep the series fresh and his characters so interesting and well-developed. This is a great thriller.

“Storm Prey”, by John Sandford (Simon & Schuster)

A botched robbery, a cop’s wife targeted

There’s a storm brewing... Very early, 4:45am on a bitterly cold Minnesota morning, three big men burst through the door of a hospital pharmacy, duct-tape the hands, feet, mouth and eyes of two pharmacy workers, and clean the place out. But then things swiftly go bad, one of the workers dies, and the robbers hustle out to their truck — and find themselves for just one second face-to-face with a blond woman who’s just driven into the garage: Weather Karkinnen, surgeon, and wife of top Minnesota investigator, Lucas Davenport.

Did she see enough? Can she identify the robbers?

Gnawing it over later, it seems to them there is only one thing they can do: Find out who she is, and eliminate the only possible witness to their crime...

Long-time readers of the site will know how much I like Sandford’s work. Having read all of the Prey novels, as well as Sandford’s much-loved, short series of Kidd novels, each new novel from the author is usually an exciting and important event on my calendar. For some reason, however, Storm Prey just kept getting pushed back, as other things came in that happened to appeal to my mood at the time. Now that I’ve got these things out of the way, Storm Prey is the first in a string of thriller reviews I’ll be doing for the site (including Sandford’s other two most recent releases, Heat Lightning and Rough Country).

Thankfully, Storm Prey was  a great read, and it was worth the wait.

At the start of the novel, Weather is introduced as a member of an important, ground-breaking surgery to separate twins conjoined at the skull. It is difficult, delicate, and dangerous work, but the media are interested and the stakes are high. The explanation of the procedure and medical detail at the beginning was a bit long, even if it was interesting, and as the story progresses we see how the surgery forms an important backdrop for the novel. It felt a little like padding at times, but this isn’t really a problem, as Sandford keeps the pace up throughout.

It was nice that Weather Karkinnen, Lucas’s wife, takes a more central role in a Prey novel after so long being in the background, playing the role of an emotional support mechanism for Lucas. In Storm Prey, Lucas is there to offer her support, so it’s a nice role-reversal. One thing that struck me, however, was that Lucas didn’t seem to feature so much in the story. One of the best things about the Prey novels is Lucas’s process of solving crimes – often internal mulling, but also unconventional investigative methods. This time around, they didn’t seem to form enough of the novel, for me.

For Storm Prey, there are a few more perspectives the novel is written from: two ‘bad guy’ factions, made up of four perspectives; Weather’s perspective; and also a little through Virgil’s eyes. So, it was noticeable how little written was told from Lucas’s point of view. Given that Sandford’s parallel series seems to be taking off, featuring Virgil as the main protagonist (book four, Bad Blood, is released this September in the USA), I wonder if the author’s getting prepared to retire the Prey series? I hope not, but equally after 20+ books, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Sandford’s classic, dry humour is present, this time commenting on American society as a whole, and the “perils of negotiating a capitalist economy”. I still love the rapport between the members of Lucas’s team; they form a real band of brothers, which makes a nice change from the lone-cop or partner/buddy-cop formula of many cop/crime thrillers.

The story initially seemed a little thin; that it might not really be that fulfilling (not to mention threatening to finish 100 pages in, before the proverbial shit hit the fan), but Sandford really makes it work, delving into the world of biker gangs, the US hospital system, drug addiction, and also the relationships between people with shared experiences and brought together under strange circumstances. A weird mix, but they made for a good story.

Basically, the group who robbed the hospital succumb to extreme paranoia; they weren’t close before the job, and when it goes wrong, suspicions go into overdrive. Some unexpected alliances form, not to mention a strangely touching friendship between Barakat (Lebanese medical resident and dope fiend) and Cappy (a cold-blooded, very young killer), which could have been the beginning of a beautiful bromance.

The plot meanders a little more than usual, and it wasn’t quite as fast-paced and exciting as previous Prey novels. But, that being said, I was still eager to read it all, and was annoyed whenever I was interrupted – I ended up snatching any opportunity to read, even if I only had time to read two pages.

Sandford remains one of the best thriller writers working today, and I eagerly look forward to reading everything and anything else he writes.

Recommended for all thriller fans.

For Fans of: Robert Crais, early James Patterson, Vince Flynn, Kyle Mills, David Baldacci, James Twining, John Grisham, Greg Iles, Christopher Reich, Daniel Silva, Linwood Barclay, Richard North Patterson

"Phantom Prey", by John Sandford (Simon & Schuster)

Volume 18 in the ever-excellent Lucas Davenport series

This latest novel from John Sandford finds Lucas a little older but no less active in his mission to discover the whereabouts of a wealthy friend's daughter.

Slower than some of the previous Davenport thrillers, the story nevertheless proceeds at a fair clip, with Sandford's impeccable prose and plotting pulling us willingly along with him.

Delving into Goth culture in the Twin Cities, Phantom Prey travels into new territory for Davenport, complete with close-shaves and a fiendish killer "Fairy" on the loose. Complete with Sandford's usual attention to grisly detail, and plenty of red-herrings and twists to keep you guessing until he reveals the baddies (sort of - you'll just have to read it to see what I mean), Phantom Prey fits perfectly into the series.

One question, though - why do cops always go for Porsches? (James Patterson's Alex Cross has one, too...)