In Naked Prey, John Sandford has moved out of gimmicky writing, although he is not ashamed to leave in puns and bounder-crossing nuns. He slows the pace to tease us. It is a new era of Prey series novels. ( )

COULDN'T PUT DOWN. LUCAS DAVENPORT IS GREAT! ( )

Gathering Prey is a book that is filled with homeless, travelers, filthy words, sex, bloody and unsettling scenes, violence, drugs, theft and good vs. bad. The setting is present day. The characters are believable in their deranged selves. The story line is believable. It is a difficult book to read because of the underbelly of society that the characters live. Not recommended for the faint of heart. ( )

Introducing Letty, my favorite Davenport-series character. ( )

Well we have Lucas fairly happy and settled in this one with a new wife and baby. However, Lucas is feeling restless since he doesn't have anything big to work on. Apparently thinking it up causes something ugly this way to come and Lucas is quickly sent off to figure out if a black man and white woman being hung together is a lynching or something else. I think Sandford did well in this one with giving you a clue to who is linked to the two people who were murdered, without giving away until Lucas realizes it, what they were all up to. And then you get to see who all was involved. I think the wrap up to things could have been done better and I have to say that I don't buy the one antagonist being cowed by his mother since we saw what happened with him and his mother when he was 11. It just felt off to me and I think Sandford wanted to try to explain away this character's guilt in order for the explosive ending.

This book is just Lucas and Del being sent by Rose Marie and the governor to figure out if a interracial couple was lynched. Even though readers know that something is going on, you don't get the whole picture until around the 50 percent mark of the book and even then you don't get everything until after that. I really have to say that is much better than when Sandford would tell you the bad guy who Lucas is just tying to track down the whole book. It gets old after a while.

Lucas is more mellow in this one. I like Lucas when he's not acting like he's not seen a woman before. He and Del working together are great and have great moments of hilarity. We are introduced to a new character in this one, pre-teen Letty who is going to become important to the series. We also get an African American reporter that Lucas decides to befriend in order to get bigger favors down the road. I hope he shows up again.

I do have to say that the first part of the book drags a bit here and there, but everything smooths out after a while. You are then just holding your breath hoping Lucas and Del make it out alive.

The ending was really good, but as I said above, I think Sandford just messed with the pathology of the one bad guy because it made zero sense about what went on when it was revealed by Sandford. I think he just did it to make the ending more bad ass (I get it) but then he needed to rewrite the beginning with the bad guy. ( )