Storm Prey

Ever reliable John Sandford comes up with another winning Lucas Davenport story. I just love his ear for dialogue, the easy bullshit the men give each other, the way their friendships work and feel real. I feel like I've known Lucas for years now, and am happy that he has settled well with Weather (though he really does have minimal interactions with his kids) and he's that rarest of all beasts - a cop with a happy family life - which is not necessarily what one would have predicted for him from his earlier books.

The crime loosely involves Weather - there is a robbery at her hospital and she saw the robbers as they drove out. Much of the book is also devoted to her work, on a difficult and traumatic separation of conjoint twins, which show more was also fascinating.

Sandford gets the details right, and pulls you into the rhythm of his character's lives. I've read every single Prey book, and it's always a good day when a new one comes out. show less

Storm Prey is number twenty in John Sanford's Prey series. Rules of Prey, published in 1989, is the first book in the series. It introduced our hero Lucas Davenport, a Minneapolis cop. Davenport is my favorite character in the mystery genre. He's intelligent, funny, sexy, fearless and perfectly smooth. Davenport is a man of appetites.

Storm Prey was published 20 years after Rules of Prey and finds Davenport promoted to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. His wife is Weather Karkinnen - the most fabulous name ever, yes? She is a plastic surgeon and saved Davenport's life a few books ago by performing an emergency tracheotomy in the middle of nowhere on a frigid Minnesota winter night.

Storm Prey begins with the robbery of a pharmacy in show more the hospital where Weather practices. As the robbers are making their escape from the parking garage Weather pulls in and gets a good look at them. The robbers decide to eliminate the only witness. Lucas calls in all of the old characters, Shrake, Del, Virgil Flowers, Jenkins, to protect Weather. At this point the book takes off and the suspense doesn't let up as Lucas and his merry men take off in pursuit of the bad guys.

There is a subplot involving an operation to separate conjoined twins in which Weather is a key member of the surgical team. I'm not sure why this subplot is necessary. I found it a little distracting. The author is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and obviously did his homework regarding the separation of conjoined twins. A little research of my own finds that Sandford published a book in 1989 titled Plastic Surgery: The Kindest Cut. Perhaps this is where he got his inspiration.

My favorite thing about these books, besides my crush on Davenport, is the dialogue. It is quick, funny, smart and fun to read. Sandford describes the robbers as "hard men." Spare but enough. In the context of that scene you know exactly what he means. Another hallmark of the Prey books is the bad guys. They are multi-dimensional. They have pasts and personalities and you can see the pathology of their thinking. The author spent a month at a prison in Minnesota interviewing inmates. He came to the conclusion, stated in an interview, that most criminals turn out ultimately to be mundane; nothing special, although they would dearly like to believe they are.

I highly recommend this book (and the entire Prey series) for fans of quality mysteries. And for what it's worth I would read the Prey series again and that's very rare for me.

Also, as a cool tidbit, I have included a link to a list of Lucas Davenport's favorite songs from Sandford's web site. Enjoy! http://www.johnsandford.org/prey16x1.html show less

A gang of bumbling bikers have robbed the hospital's pharmacy - accidentally killing the pharmacist while doing so - at the direction of a drug-addled hospital insider. Lucas Davenport and his crew are drawn into the investigation, and Lucas has a personal stake in the outcome as his physician wife Weather works at the hospital, and may be a witness able to identify at least one of the perps.

The story rocks along in an engaging manner, involving the reader not only in the crime that Lucas is on course to solve, but also in the fates of a pair of twins conjoined at the head at birth whom Lucas's wife Weather is trying to surgically separate.

The two plot lines progress in tandem, and are great counterpoints to each other. We also see the show more protagonist of one of Sanford's other series - Virgil Flowers - involved in this story in a peripheral role, yet another fun element.

I would be very surprised if any lover of the work of Lee Child or Harlan Coben, (which I am), wouldn't enjoy John Sandford's work. show less

Another good one. Strange that this series hasn't gotten stale. Yeah sure, we've had some bumps and Davenport has been domesticated, but the stories are still compelling. I really like the way Sandford handles both aspects of the crime; the criminals' point of view and the cops'. Both play off each other in ways that build suspense despite knowing what both sides are doing. Very deft.

I personally thought this was one of the best of the "Prey" series. Ole Virgil up to his tricks and pissing people off in the way he always does. Glad to read a little more about Weather and her position at the hospital. And Lucas guessing correctly at every turn, well almost. A very enjoyable read!

This series has lost its luster. The book is cocaine, carnage, and cojoined twins. All the medical mumbo jumbo does not a good detective story make. The series worked when Lucas Davenport held the stage. Moving him to the middle ground makes for boring reading.

I am stupidly dedicated to the Prey series and I will probably always love me some Lucas Davenport. And Virgil Flowers. But I've been wondering: what happened?? Why is the Prey series now a run of the mill mystery?

Lucas is incredibly intelligent, shrewd and will kill you if he needs to. He used to go up against some intelligent, shrewd killers in previous books but the last few have been disappointing. He's having to go against some of the dumbest damn people ever. There's no mystery or challenge anymore.

The hospital that Weather works at is robbed with the pharmacy wiped clean. Someone dies in the process and everyone is up in arms. The Mack brothers and an inside doc are the criminals and they are all as dumb as bricks. And drug show more addicts to boot. Fabulous.

For a regular ol' mystery, this is good. For a Davenport book (with that Fuckin' Flowers even!!!) it's just not that good. Lucas needs better villians to go up against. No more stupid rednecks. show less