Phantom Prey

Alyssa Austin, recently widowed when the airplane carrying her millionaire pilot husband Hunter crashed in Canada, comes home to discover the alarm system of her suburban home turned off, but no one in the house. Knowing the housekeeper Helen is gone for the day, Alyssa calls out for her daughter Frances who might be visiting. Alyssa searches the house and finds what turns out to be a small blood stain on the wallpape. The blood belongs to Frances and the police find that more blood has been wiped from the floors. But... there is no corpse.

John Sanford is simply one of the finest authors of police procedurals in the business. The nice thing about the "Prey" series is that if you start with one, you will be drawn to reading the others. show more Start with the first and work your way through all of them. Enjoy some excellent reading! show less

While I liked the multiple personality aspect of the killer, I wish there was more reason for Alyssa's condition. There was a brief interlude from the past when the killer was revealed, but it wasn't enough. Why the split? Were there other manifestations? Did her daughter realize? Other than that, it was fun and the parallel investigation into Siggy was fun although I could have done without Lucas getting shot, again.

If anyone could breathe new life into a tired, overused thriller trope, Sandford would be the guy. Even his skill was not enough to make this particular plot enjoyable for me. If you didn't live through the 90s when elements of this story were the plot twist du jour, this novel may well be a hit for you. It features Sandford's typical mix of complicated (but not so much it's hard to follow) plotting, diverse points of view, quick pacing, and interesting characters. He's smart as heck and it shows in his writing.

This one just wasn't for me.

Another Prey novel featuring Lucas Davenport and his cohorts in the Twin Cities. Each Prey novel is a standalone book, with character building strands that flow between them. Phantom Prey tweaks these themes to offer a slightly different approach, presumably to prevent the series from being repetitive. As expected the central storyline revolves around a killer, with Davenport ushered in to support. However, there are other plots weaved through the book, some without closure, which may be building for use in a later book - new territory for Sandford. The most important plot element is interesting and offers plenty of opportunities for the wit, irony and reality checks that make Sandford's books so enjoyable and easy to read. Phantom Prey show more isn't the strongest in the series, however is a page-turner with great characters. show less

The latest installment in the Lucas Davenport series. Excellent plot and pacing. Sandford just never misses. His writing is sharp and clean and fast-paced. He always has kind of a "double" plot---the main story and then a side story of another case Lucas is working on. In this book, both stories are exciting and interesting.

The main plot has a nice sinister, otherworldly edge to it, which I haven't seen in this series before. Sandford took a little Stephen King and put it in one character's head. :)
A very wealthy woman's daughter is missing and presumably murdered. Then some of the missing girl's "Goth" friends get murdered, and Lucas has to figure out how it's connected.

Meanwhile, in the subplot, Lucas and Del are monitoring the show more activities of the wife of an escaped Lithuanian criminal, "Siggy". They spy on her apartment to see who visits her and try to figure out when Siggy will be sneaking back to see his wife and child.

I was close to giving this book five stars, but the ending was a little weak. Not bad, just not strong. It had a sort of "to be continued..." feel to it, which is okay for a series, but it should also stand on its own. show less

Even by the exacting standards of John Sandford's series of Lucas Davenport mysteries, this is a a masterpiece. The characters (even the ones that only exist in the troubled mind of the murderess) are fully fleshed out, and the plot is captivating. Even the parallel subplot grabbed me . . . and that's not an easy thing to do with a police stake-out.

Ehhh. I didn't really like this one. It's a strong 3 star book, but the whole thing with the character of Fairy just didn't work for me. It actually took away from the first plot (who murdered Alyssa Austin's daughter and why). And though Sandford delays showing us what is going on until the 60 percent or so mark, I found myself losing interest after the reveal and just wanting to finish the book already. Usually Lucas has two cases to follow and in this one, the second case was more interesting.

"Phantom Prey" has Lucas being asked to help his wife Weather's friend Alyssa Austin after the probable murder of her daughter. Alyssa returns home one day to a blood spattered kitchen and the police believe based on blood typing, that her show more daughter was killed. Alyssa wants Lucas to look into it since she believes the police think she did it. Lucas is initially reluctant, but does it because Weather asks, and he likes puzzles. Lucas is also dealing with a long term surveillance into a Lithuanian gangster (yep they are just all over Minnesota I guess) and a longer worry about the upcoming Republican National Convention.

Lucas and some of the characters we have known for a while slide into gross territory again. I ended up not feeling most of the long term characters like Del. I ended up missing Sloan a lot while reading. I think I like the books best when Lucas is hunting a serial killer. He does do his Lucas thing where he slowly but surely figures out what is going on and what happened, and I like the reveal of who killed Alyssa's daughter and why. I think if Sandford had stuck with that, it would have worked much better. The gangster subplot sucked.

The writing was so-so. I just had a hard time with the reveal and what it meant. It made zero sense to me and I think Sandford was going for shocking when he should have went with believable. Also can we stop with the bad guys trying to kill Lucas everytime? Most criminals don't go looking to kill a cop, it's a terrible idea. And Lucas should be able to catch a tail at this point.

The flow was up and down. Once we get into the whole character of Fairy and Loren and what was really going on I started to skim a bit.

The ending was seriously a case of no one really cares what happened here and I found myself slightly disenchanted. show less