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Certain Prey by John Sandford
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Certain Prey

by John Sandford

Series: Lucas Davenport (10)

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75945,745 (4)3
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Berkley (2000), Mass Market Paperback, 384 pages

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Hit woman Clara Rinker working for Minneapolis lawyer Carmel Loan. Clara is a surprisingly sympathetic character. ( )
  ktoonen | Jun 14, 2009 |
I bought 4 Prey books and read them in order, but they weren't directly following each other. This one is book 10 in the series.

It's the one with the lawyer who hires someone to kill her beloved's wife, so they can get together. She finds the eminently professional Clara Rinken who does everything right. But when Carmel is blackmailed by her contact, she recontacts Clara and from there things get sticky...

Lucas is up to his old tricks and plays his usual mind games. I liked this one. Clara is a terrific character, so good in fact, that Sandford uses her again in a later book... ( )
  amf0001 | Jul 29, 2008 |
As a teenager, Clara Rinker ran away from home and an abusive stepfather. While working as a dancer in a strip club, Clara is raped but plots her vengeance and kills the man who assaulted her. This begins a long career for Clara as a hired killer. Carmel Loan is a successful defense attorney in Minneapolis, a woman who is used to getting what she wants. And she wants Hale Allen, but standing in her way is Allen’s wife. Through a third-party, Carmel hires Clara to kill Allen’s wife, at which point, Lucas Davenport steps into the picture. Before Clara can enjoy her new relationship with Allen, the liaison she used to contact Clara tries to blackmail Carmel, so Carmel hires Clara personally to take care of this matter. From this point, things begin to unravel, which requires Clara and Carmel to team up and commit more murders. All the while, Davenport and his crew are one step behind the two killers, with no evidence to tie either one to any of the murders.

This is the tenth book in the Prey series by John Sandford, which remains as fresh at this point as at the beginning. Lucas Davenport is an engaging character, an intelligent and intense investigator who enjoys his career chasing killers. Although there is no actual mystery to figure out here, which marks this as more of a thriller, the chase by Davenport and several strong secondary characters is fine-tuned and all the more enjoyable to follow. ( )
  ctfrench | Jun 12, 2008 |
Carmel Loan (atty) Hale Allen (dumb atty-lover)
carmel kills wife on bacj steps. ( )
  bigjacks | Aug 27, 2006 |
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For Tom and Rozanne Anderson
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Clara Rinker. Of the three unluckiest day in Barbara Allen's life, the first was the day Clara Rinker was raped behind a St. Louis nudie bar called Zanadu,which was located west of the city in a dusty checkerboard of truck terminals, warehouses and light assembly plants.
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John Sandford (novelist)

Book description
Clara Rinker is a southerner, trim, pleasant, attractive – and the best hit woman in the business. She isn't showy, not like one of those movie killers; she just goes quietly about her business, collects her money, and goes home.
It's when she's hired for a job in Minnesota that things become complicated for her. A defense attorney wants a rival eliminated, and that's fine. But then a witness survives, the attorney starts acting weird, this big cop Davenport gets on her case, and loose ends begin popping up faster than a sweater unraveling. Clara hates loose ends, and knows of only one way to deal with them: You start cutting them off, one after another, until they're all gone.
Lucas thinks the case is worrisome enough, but he has no idea of the toll it is about to take on him. For of the many criminals he has hunted during his life, none has been as efficient or as ferociously intelligent as the one who is about to start hunting him – and none knows so well what his weak spots are... and how to penetrate them.

Amazon.com (ISBN 039914496X, Hardcover)

In the 10th installment of his popular Prey series, John Sandford (a.k.a. John Camp) pits his popular antihero, Lucas Davenport, against a pair of cunning killers unlike any he has encountered before.

Attorney Carmel Loan is preternaturally beautiful, intelligent, and ambitious. When she becomes infatuated with fellow barrister Hale Allen, she isn't going to let a little thing like his being married get in her way. A quick meeting with an ex-client sets up the hit on Hale's wife, Barbara. The professional killer, Clara Rinker, is one of the best in the business. Smart, attractive, with a gentle Southern drawl, no one would suspect her of being a top Mafia hit man... er, hit person. When she takes the Allen assignment, she figures it will be easy money for a day's work. But things go wrong from the beginning. Loan's ex-client made a tape of the meeting, and is shaking her down for money. Worse, the shooting of a witness--a cop--brings deputy inspector Lucas Davenport into the case. Somehow Davenport has not only linked Loan to the killing, but seems to have a lead on Rinker as well. Carmel and Clara team up to clean up the loose ends, which includes getting Davenport off their back by whatever means necessary.

Like all of Sandford's books, Certain Prey is a fast and furious ride. Fans of previous Prey books will find Davenport a little older, a little more wary, but no less sharp-witted and determined. Though parts of the plot may stretch the limits of credulity and the dialogue falls a little flat in places, this is still a wonderfully crafted thriller, possibly one of the best of 1999. Certain Prey cements Sandford's standing among such luminaries as James Lee Burke, Lawrence Block, and Thomas Harris. --Perry Atterberry

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:55 -0400)

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