|
|
|
|
Rules of Prey (1989). In John Sandford:
Three Complete Novels
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 725 pages, hardcover, ISBN 0-399-14007-7
In this introductory novel Minneapolis homicide detective Lucas Davenport, creator of computer games in his spare time, faces an intelligent serial killer who leaves behind messages stating his rules for avoiding detection. As the chase escalates, the killer, known as maddog, tries to outwit Davenport by doing something other than what Davenport will expect him to do. At the same time Davenport pursues maddog by thinking like a computer gamer.
Davenport's income from computer games allows him to drive a Porsche, but his personal life is a mess. When his girlfriend, newspaper reporter Jennifer Carey, tells him she's pregnant, Davenport immediately says they should get married. But Jennifer refuses; she knows that Lucas is not cut out for marriage and traditional family life. Davenport wastes little time in proving Jennifer correct.
Shadow Prey (1990). In John Sandford:
Three Complete Novels
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 725 pages, hardcover, ISBN 0-399-14007-7
A slumlord in Minneapolis, a politician in New York City, and a judge in Oklahoma City are all murdered in the same way. All are connected back to Minnesota's Native American community, where Lucas Davenport must find the elusive Shadow Love to avoid becoming the next victim.
With the arrival in Minneapolis of Lily Rothenberg, a female police lieutenant from New York City, we begin to gain more insight into the character of Lucas Davenport. First, an FBI man tells Lily about Lucas:
"He's gunned down six people. Killed them. I don't believe there's another officer in Minnesota, including SWAT guys, who has killed more than two. No FBI man has. Maybe nobody in the country has. And you know why? Because in most places, if a guy kills two people, he goes on a desk. They won't let him out anymore. They worry about what they've got on their hands. But not with Davenport. He does what he pleases. Sometimes that's killing people."Later, Lucas and Lily discuss his womanizing:(p. 331)
"Hey, look. I've been through this," Lucas said. "I feel bad about it sometimes, but I can't stay away from women. A shrink would probably find something weird is wrong with me. But I just …want women. It's like you said, I get hungry. I can't stop it. It's a drug, you crave it."And when Lucas and Lily set up a 17-year-old on a drug bust so they can squeeze some information out of the kid's mother, Lily asks Lucas if he feels bad about what they've done. "Actually, not that bad," Lucas tells her, and Lily replies:(p. 412)
"I don't feel that bad myself. And I think we should. It makes me a little sad that we don't feel worse," Lily said. "We're missing some parts, Davenport."(p. 396)
Eyes of Prey (1991). In John Sandford:
Three Complete Novels
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 725 pages, hardcover, ISBN 0-399-14007-7
At the end of Shadow Prey Jennifer, Davenport's former girlfriend, and Sarah, their baby, are wounded in a shootout. After this experience Jennifer has withdrawn from Lucas and now allows him to see Sarah only on weekends. As a result of Jennifer's withdrawal and his own near encounter with death, Lucas has been in a deep depression, hearing the call of the guns downstairs in his gun safe.
Meanwhile Stephanie Bekker, wife of Dr. Michael Bekker, is murdered. Police know there was a witness, Stephanie's lover who came downstairs just in time to catch a brief glimpse of the killer. The identity of Loverboy remains a crucial part of the investigation. Soon other corpses begin to turn up. What ties all of the murders together is that the eyes of each victim are viciously slashed and stabbed after death.
Chief Daniel assigns Davenport to the Bekker murder case hoping that it will pull him out of the doldrums, and the strategy seems to be working:
His head wasn't working right. Hadn't been for months. But now, he thought, something was changing. There'd been just the smallest quieting of the storm…He pitied himself and was sick of pitying himself. He felt his friends' concern and he was tired of it.(p. 521)
Bekker was interesting. Lucas had felt the interest growing, watching it like a gardener watching a new plant, almost afraid to hope. He'd seen depression in other cops, but he'd always been skeptical. No more. The depression—an unfit word for what had happened to him—was so tangible that he imagined it as a dark beast, stalking him, off in the dark.
(p. 531)
When Davenport finally catches Bekker, he rips Bekker's face to shreds with the sight end of his revolver. Since this is not Davenport's first instance of using excessive force, Chief Daniel dismisses him from the police department.
This is the least believable of the "Prey" books. Michael Bekker is a pathologist at University Hospital, yet he takes lots of drugs in haphazard combinations and sometimes "goes away" during his drug trips. The way he pops all kinds of pills together without even remembering what or how much he has taken, it's hard to believe he hasn't killed himself. And even if he managed not to overdose, he could not continue to function as a doctor in a university hospital setting, which would involve teaching and other academic responsibilities. Finally, Bekker replenishes his drug supply by taking pills from containers in a patient's nightstand. No hospital—but particularly a university hospital—would keep medication in a patient's room.
Silent Prey (1992)
Berkley Books, $6.99 paperback, ISBN 0-425-13756-2
This book opens with the escape of Michael Bekker on the day the jury begins deliberation at his trial. Soon bodies with no eyelids start turning up in New York City and scientific journals begin receiving long, scholarly papers from Bekker about his experiments involving the experience of death.
Davenport, dismissed from the Minneapolis police force at the end of Eyes of Prey, is expanding his business in computer games and simulations when Lily Rothenberg (from Shadow Prey) shows up at his house and asks him to come to New York to help track down Bekker. While helping the NYPD look for Bekker, Davenport is also supposed to help them ferret out what may be a band of renegade cops who are killing, gangland style, criminals who've been able to avoid conviction—the so-called Robin Hood killings.
Winter Prey (1993)
Berkley, 343 pages, $5.99 paperback, ISBN 0-425-14123-3
Lucas Davenport is spending the coldest winter anyone can remember in his cabin in northern Wisconsin. When a multiple murder occurs in a nearby small town, the local sheriff realizes he's in over his head and calls in Davenport, the famous former Minneapolis cop, to help apprehend the killer known as the Iceman. The investigation quickly escalates to include the murder of a teenage boy a few months earlier and the possible existence of a local child pornography ring. When another teenager is murdered, Davenport realizes that anyone he has talked to in his investigation is in danger.
Creating a dark, sinister, menacing atmosphere is one of John Sandford's strong points. In this novel the personification of a brutal northern winter contributes to the menacing suspense:
. . . the forest pressed in: the pine and spruce tiptoed closer, to bend over the house with an unbearable weight. The arbor vitae would paw at the windows, the bare birch branches would scratch at the eaves. All together they sounded like the maundering approach of something wicked, a beast with claws and fangs that rattled on the clapboard siding, searching for a grip. A beast that might pry the house apart…And Lucas Davenport fits right in with this bleak landscape: "The place might have been snatched from a frozen suburb of hell. He felt at home" (p. 15).(p. 3)
Another of John Sandford's strong points particularly evident in this novel is the use of interesting characters to keep a series from becoming stale. In this book we meet Shelley Carr, the sheriff, a charismatic Catholic who never says anything stronger than gol-darn; he's genuinely disturbed by what's happening in his town, and he knows that the child pornography ring will tear the town apart more than the murders will. There's also Gene Climpt, a middle-aged deputy whose young daughter died years earlier when she fell into a bathtub full of scalding water; Climpt's wife killed herself while he was at the funeral home making arrangements for his daughter's services. Climpt goes into a deep depression at the end of the book when the police have to shoot a teenaged girl who has tried to kill Lucas. Finally, there's Father Phil Bergen, the alcoholic Catholic priest. These well-drawn characters keep the extended "Prey" series fresh.
And in this book Davenport's love life takes a new turn, perhaps for the better, in his relationship with Wisconsin doctor Weather Karkinnen:
He'd always been attracted to smart women, but few of his affairs had gone anywhere. He had a daughter with a woman he'd never loved, though he'd liked her a lot. She was a reporter, and they'd been held together by a common addiction to pressure and movement. He'd loved another woman, or might have, who was consumed by her career as a cop. Weather fit the mold of the cop. She was serious, and tough, but seemed to have an intact sense of humor.During the pursuit of the Iceman Lucas is shot in the throat and Weather saves his life. The book ends with him recovering in the hospital and looking forward to the future of his relationship with Weather.(p. 155)
Night Prey (1994)
Berkley, 400 pages, $6.99 paperback, ISBN0-425-14641-3
Back in Minneapolis, Lucas Davenport's new business producing police training simulation software is making a fortune when Rose Marie Roux, the new police chief, asks Davenport to come back to the force. Roux, who has her eye on an eventual seat in the Senate, needs him to help track down the latest serial killer. So Davenport becomes a deputy chief, an appointed position not subject to the same restrictions that previously cost him his job as a police officer.
And Lucas is even thinking about marrying Weather Karkinnen:
Lucas had been in love before, but with Weather, it was different. Everything was tilted, a little out of control. He might be overcommitting himself, he thought. On the other hand, there was a passion that he hadn't experienced before….Will this notorious womanizer finally find fidelity and true happiness? Stay tuned.And she made him happy… He was in deep. But the idea of one single woman, for the rest of time…
(p. 204)
Mind Prey (1995)
Berkley, 354 pages, $6.99 paperback, ISBN 0-425-15289-8
Mind Prey opens with a memorable simile: "The storm blew up late in the afternoon, tight, gray clouds hustling over the lake like dirty, balled-up sweat socks spilling from a basket" (p. 1). Soon Andi Manette, a psychiatrist, and her two young daughters (Genevieve, age nine, and Grace, age twelve) are kidnapped from the parking lot of the girls' school during the rainstorm. Since Andi and her husband, George Dunn, are in the process of getting a divorce, Dunn becomes a prime suspect.
When the kidnapper begins calling Davenport on his cellular phone to give him clues, Lucas realizes the kidnapper must also be involved with computer games. With the help of his childhood friend Elle Kruger, now Sister Mary Joseph, Lucas unravels the clues.
Lucas spends this entire book carrying around an engagement ring. He's got it bad:
Weather was not pretty, but she reached him with a power he hadn't experienced before: His attraction had grown so strong that it scared him at times. He'd lie awake at night, watching her sleep, inventing nightmares in which she left him.And Weather seems to be changing Lucas: "He kept the ring in the bottom of his sock drawer, waiting for the right moment. He could feel it there and wondered if it made black sparkles in the dark" (p. 52). This is downright poetic, not a thought the earlier Lucas would have had.(p. 52)
Sudden Prey (1996)
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 360 pages, $23.95 hardcover, ISBN 0-399-14138-3
On the trail of bank robbers Candy LaChaise and her sister-in-law Georgie, police have staked out the Credit Union they think the duo will hit next. When Candy cold-bloodedly shoots a man inside the Credit Union on her way out with the loot, a shootout ensues in which both Candy and Georgie are killed.
Weather joins the public outcries about police brutality, a police setup:
"Lucas," [Weather] interrupted. "I know how your mind works. TV said these people had been under surveillance for nine days. I can feel you manipulating them into a robbery. I don't know if you know, but I know it."When Dick LaChaise—husband of Candy and brother of Georgie—is brought to the funeral home for the two women's funerals, he slits the throat of the marshal escorting him and escapes. LaChaise's mother vows that Dick will seek vengeance, "an eye for an eye." Soon the spouses of two police officers are attacked and murdered, and Davenport fears that LaChaise is making good on his mother's prediction. Furthermore, Davenport suspects that a crooked cop is feeding information to LaChaise. If Davenport doesn't find the killers, Weather and his daughter Sarah could be the next victims.(p. 21)
The Night Crew (1997)
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 371 pages, $23.95 hardcover, ISBN 0-399-14237-1
The action has moved from Minnesota to Los Angeles and the protagonist is a woman, but otherwise fans of John Sandford's "Prey" series won't notice much difference between the earlier novels and this one.
The main character here is Anna Batory, a Midwesterner trained as a concert pianist. Not quite good enough for a concert career, she's come to Los Angeles, where she runs a group of freelance video journalists who roam the city streets at night in search of news stories to sell to local stations and the networks.
This book's nonstop action begins right away, when the night crew videotapes an apparent suicide, a young man jumping from a building. Then the photographer who shot the tape of the jumper washes ashore with a bullet hole in his head. The tough and resourceful Anna soon suspects that the killer is after her. The pace never lets up as she relentlessly pursues him before he can get to her.
Secret Prey (1998)
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 392 pages, $24.95 hardcover, ISBN 0-399-14382-3
After an interlude with Anna Batory on the West Coast, in Secret Prey
John Sandford puts detective Lucas Davenport back to work in Minneapolis.
Daniel S. Kresge, chairman of the board, president, and CEO of the Polaris
Bank System, is murdered at his cabin in northern Minnesota on the first
day of deer-hunting season. Accompanying Kresge on this hunting trip are
four of the bank's top employees, all of whom have a motive for killing
him. Minneapolis police chief Rose Marie Roux assigns the case to Lucas
because she thinks he needs a high-adrenaline case to counteract the onset
of depression caused by the departure of his former fiancée.
The reader learns about half way through who the bad guy is. This approach is not unusual for Sandford. His readers often know who's guilty but are caught up in the suspense of whether Lucas can catch the guilty party before someone else is killed. However, I sense a shift of emphasis here. Sandford seems more willing to explore the character involved rather than simply relying on the action of the plot to carry the story. This shift adds a bit more depth and interest than usual. The change is welcome enough that Sandford can even be forgiven for the commonly used psychological type he employs as the villain.
Followers of Lucas Davenport will not be disappointed in this latest installment.
Certain Prey (1999)
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 339 pages, $24.95 hardcover, ISBN 0-399-14496-X
In his latest Lucas Davenport thriller John Sandford does something different: he focuses on the villain as much as on the hero. And what a villain it is: Clara Rinker, the best hit woman (or hit man) around. When Rinker does a job in Minnesota and, for the first time in her career, makes a tiny mistake, she and Lucas engage in an intellectual cat-and-mouse game.
I suspect Sandford has given us Clara Rinker because of criticism that he can’t create a dynamic female character. Most of his other female characters—even the more fully developed ones like Lily Rothenberg, a police lieutenant from New York City—exist mainly to hop into bed with Davenport. But in Clara Rinker Davenport seems to have met his match in intellect, intuitiveness, coldness, and cunning.
There’s even a second female major character in this novel. But she’s portrayed as so over-the-top that it’s impossible to take her seriously; she’s more a caricature than a character. In fact, the contrast between the two female characters makes Clara look even more formidable than she would on her own.
Keeping a long series fresh is a challenge for any author, but it looks as if John Sandford has started out in a promising new direction here.
(also publishes under pseudonym John Sandford)
Search Notes in the Margin |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
