ŷ������

As I have stated in previous reviews, I am a fairly avid reader of John Sandford over the years, especially a fan of his Lucas Davenport “Prey�� series. A pretty big fan to be honest, even though honesty requires me to admit the books have been spotty over the last several years. It seems like every other book is a really good one and the other less than stellar. My fear is that Sanford may be losing some steam when it comes to creating interesting storylines and complex bad guys. Several of his more recent books have had less than worthy bad guys and relied heavily on long-winded chase scenes that lasted for hundreds of pages.

In the current and 35th Prey novel by Sandford - “Lethal Prey�� �� Sanford teams up his two most popular detectives - Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers �� to work on a 20 plus year-old murder cold case. Why? Because those in political power in Minnesota have a donor with lots of money and a passion for finding the truth before she passes on.

Lara Grandfelt has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is determined to find out who brutally stabbed her twin sister, Doris, when she was 21 years old and working at an accounting firm. Her body was dumped among a stand of trees in an urban park outside of St. Paul. For over 20 years, Lara has been making personal calls and requested to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, but there have been no clues or results. The trail appears to be dead.

Lara’s patience has worn out and she’s decided to take matters into her own hands. She puts her financial success to good use, calling in her political favors and offering a $5 million reward for information leading to the killer’s arrest. To add fuel to the fire she dumps the entire investigative file on most of the true crime websites, hoping to spur true crime bloggers into discovering new evidence to get the cold case reenergized.

Enter Davenport and Flowers, who are recruited to coordinate the new investigation, reviewing the bloggers research and working with the state law enforcement agencies. Lucas is interested in seeing how things could turn out and Virgil is hoping that taking this assignment on will allow him more time to work on this third novel, one that will make or break his chances of getting the multi-book publishing deal that will provide for his family’s future.

However, neither truly understand what they are getting themselves into, which is an investigation like no other that they have ever been involved in. This time they are facing a killer who has been able to stay in the background for their whole life while living in plain sight. A killer that works within the legal system and has built a network of resources. A killer that may be hiding bigger and deadlier secrets than just one murder...

As much as I have enjoyed reading John Sanford novels over the years and have an endearing love for his characters �� Lucas, Virgil, and Letty �� I have mixed feelings about this book. Unfortunately, it was not one of my favorites. It was an interesting read, but more like a predictable and safe dinner at a restaurant with a friend than that of a dangerous heart pounding thriller that Sanford used to be capable of. Let me elaborate further.

The good things include Lucas and Virgil working together. Although Letty didn’t make an appearance this time, which was really sad since the banter between her and Virgil is awesome, anytime you get Lucas and Virgil working together, it comes in as a close second for sarcasm and pure entertainment. They had some of the best back and forth conversations that I can remember from any of the books in the series. I especially loved Lucas telling Virgil that writing a book was easy, basically just start typing. I found myself literally laughing out loud more with this book than any of the others. Their delivery and wisecracking were downright classic, especially when interacting with the true crime bloggers. Poor Virgil just couldn’t help himself��

I was also drawn to the development of Virgil and his family in this one. Virgil’s progress as a professional writer was good to see, although it appears his interest in his daytime crime fighting job is starting to dwindle. It will be interesting to see how Sanford continues down this road for Virgil and whether he transitions into writing full-time, or Lucas will find ways to continue pulling him back into investigations for a while. Either that or Sanford could focus more on Letty and Lucas while Virgil moves into more of a backseat role

On the other hand, the bad things were primarily related to two crucial elements �� the execution of the plotting and the ending.

As much fun as it was to read this book, the plotting was a little disappointing for me from an execution standpoint. I’ve usually enjoyed how Sanford has Lucas and/or Virgil investigate a murder or crime, working through one clue at a time, until things start to unravel and build to some kind of a climactic confrontation and capture moment that usually involves some kind of violent chase.

However, this mystery was more like reading an investigative crime article in a Sunday newspaper. Lucas and Virgil spent all of their time running around talking to people or conducting interviews. I mean it. ALL of their time was going back and forth between bloggers, interviewees, law enforcement focals, and politicians. It was interesting, but not exciting. They were never in front of anything until the very end. There were no chase scenes, no action scenes that involved fighting, shooting, or any kind of direct law enforcement action with the killer. It ended being all legal procedure activity, a lot of which took place off screen. For me, it actually felt a little disappointing not to have any real sense of danger or risk for our heroes. I would even dare to call it somewhat bland. Yes, I know that a barn burned down, but come one, nobody was in real danger and that turned out to be the most personal risk of danger for any of the good guys in the entire book.

Also, I want to be careful about what I say about the ending so as not to spoil the read for anyone else. You may want to finish the book before reading my next paragraph.

*** Warning �� reviewer is dancing around a spoiler below ***

The other problem I had with this book is the ending. There is no ending. There is no climax. There is no outcome. Really. It’s like the last chapter is missing or left out. It builds towards a conclusion and then just ends abruptly without any kind of closure. It’s worse than a cliffhanger, because at least then you would know that the author is planning for more. But we aren’t left with any resolution or information about whether Sanford plans on continuing this story in his next “Prey�� novel or not. I am sorry to say that this was really disappointing. A seriously frustrating letdown that I never expected from him.

It also made me wonder what the heck the editor and publisher were thinking. If they knew that Sanford was planning on a follow-up novel, they could have at least got him to add something that helped the reader know there was more to come or done something in their promotion of the book to let the reader know the same. Either way, they dropped the ball on this one.

And last, on a personal note, I was glad to see Virgil and Frankie finally get hitched, but again I feel robbed because it took place offscreen. What an important moment to not include in the book. Seriously? We, the fans, have been waiting for this moment for years, and with Lucas serving as Virgil’s best man, how could it only be included as a reference to the event taking place felt like a major letdown. Yep, that’s how I feel about that��

*** End of dancing around a spoiler above ***

Overall, there was some really good moments (even some classic ones), mostly between Davenport and Flowers, and their interactions with others. But the overall casual investigative approach by the two without much action on their part, and the in unexplained lack of an ending really left me with a bit of a disappointing sour taste in my mouth.

I’m giving this one a 3-star rating, and I feel like that’s more than generous. I’ve said enough. Hopefully, you enjoyed this one more than I did.