If you’re a fan of this series the very first sentence will break your heart.
Do things get better after that? Let’s see what one of the characters hasIf you’re a fan of this series the very first sentence will break your heart.
Do things get better after that? Let’s see what one of the characters has to say about the possibility of good things happening after bad things:
”Sometimes it’s just one shit sandwich after another.”
Truth.
So yeah, there are a couple of moments in this that absolutely suck if you’re invested in these characters. That’s not to say that all hope is lost, and that there aren’t some good fist-pumping “Hell yeah!” moments. There are plenty, but there is a steep price to pay for them. It’s still worth it though.
That’s pretty much all I have to say about this one. It’s nigh on impossible to talk about the eighth book in a nine book series without spoiling the previous ones so I’m just going to once again urge that any sci-fi/space opera fans try this if they haven’t already. Oh, and the TV show based on it that is now on Amazon Prime is well worth watching, too....more
As a top agent for Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Lucas Davenport has mastered the art of introducing himself to local law enforcement sAs a top agent for Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Lucas Davenport has mastered the art of introducing himself to local law enforcement so that they won’t resent him as an outsider coming in to tell them how to do their job:
The cop who’d followed Lucas in said, “Hey, when I’m talking to you…”
Lucas pointed his finger at him and snarled, “Shut the fuck up. Who’s running this clown factory?”
As a plain-clothes cop, Lucas is also well aware of the danger of running across other police officers during a pursuit and the proper way to identify himself:
Both the cops were screaming at him and Lucas shouted, “BCA, you dumb motherfuckers,” and finally one of the cops waved a hand at his partner and said, “Put the gun in the street.”
“Fuck you,” Lucas yelled back. “My hands are over my head, I’m not touching the gun again because you dumb motherfuckers’ll shoot me sure as shit.”
Lucas can also demonstrate his gift of diplomacy and calm persuasion when dealing with a reluctant witness who is in danger but still refuses to reveal anything about the criminal enterprise he’s involved in:
The sat in silence for a moment, and then Lucas said, “Well, fuck ya. We told ya.”
As these quotes show, Lucas is a little grumpy in this one. Despite everything going well on the personal front, he’s chafing a bit at the blatant political nature of his new state job as the governor’s guy who ‘fixes shit’, and he’s also starting to worry that being surrounded by violent death for over twenty years has started to take a toll.
But when a Russian is killed at a dock on Lake Superior, the international pressure demands some kind of solution so Lucas finds himself teamed up with a pretty woman sent from Moscow to observe the investigation. Nadya claims to be a Russian cop, but Lucas is pretty sure she’s actually an intelligence agent and her agenda may be different from his. The FBI is also sniffing around, but they’re far more worried about terrorists than revisiting the Cold War. Lucas cares little about the ‘spy shit’, but he does get irked when more bodies start dropping all over Minnesota.
The spy angle and Davenport’s dissatisfaction with the job are a departure from the usual Prey books, but a grumpy Lucas is also a funny Lucas. Sandford has been making noises about ending the series for some time, but this as the first clear idea in the books that Lucas might be thinking about quitting law enforcement for good. Since there’s been about 10 more books since then, he apparently got over it although Sandford still talks about wrapping up Lucas’ story at some point.
This one also features another interesting twist on the villain with a Soviet era spy who is still a true believer in Communism and has raised his grandson to follow in his murderous footsteps. It’s another good step away from the typical serial killer we usually get in thrillers.
Re-read this recently because of how it kinda sorta seemed like it might tie into the WandaVision series. Still a pretty intriguing concept with the iRe-read this recently because of how it kinda sorta seemed like it might tie into the WandaVision series. Still a pretty intriguing concept with the idea of the team having one very bad day with catastrophic consequences, but it's been diluted now because none of the character deaths stuck. And of course, once the Avengers turned into a box-office powerhouse there was no way that the core team was going to stay disassembled so it seems like more of an odd curiosity now than anything else....more
Block had written about Matt trying to get sober in the mid-‘80s with 8 Million Ways to Die, and then hAnd so begins the second phase of Matt Scudder.
Block had written about Matt trying to get sober in the mid-‘80s with 8 Million Ways to Die, and then he had done a flashback novel when Matt was still boozing during the ‘70s in When the Sacred Ginmill Closes so there’s been a pretty substantial gap in Matt’s timeline when this story starts up in 1989. (Thanks to winning an ARC of the upcoming A Drop of the Hard Stuff, I can report that Scudder fans will get some more info about what Matt was up to.)
Matt is over three years sober and has become a regular fixture at AA meetings. He still works as an unlicensed private detective and has been trying to track down a missing girl. With no leads in that case and without a steady girlfriend or the circle of bar buddies he used to hang with, Matt is a little bored and lonely. A former small time crook named Eddie approaches Matt after an AA meeting and asks if he would hear his fifth step, a confession of the things that he feels badly about it. Matt agrees, but then doesn’t hear from Eddie. When he goes looking for him, Matt finds Eddie dead under odd circumstances. Was it an accident or murder?
Matt meets a couple of new friends in this one. The first is a woman that he starts dating and likes very much, but he’s quietly conflicted about her drinking. The second is a man who will become a very important figure in the Scudder series: Mick Ballou. (Oddly, he’s called Mickey in this first one. I always remember him as being referred to as Mick.)
Ballou is a bigger than life Irish gangster who likes to wear his father’s old butcher apron to an early mass in the meat district of New York, and it’s probably best that you not ask him about any fresh stains you see on it. Mick also may or may not have once carried an enemy’s head around in a bowling bag while he was bar hopping. Oddly, the hard drinking criminal and the alcoholic ex-cop feel a kinship, and this one hints at the long friendship that eventually develops between the two.
Matt’s life without drinking and the introduction of Ballou mark this as a change to the series, but it’s still the same incredibly well-written account of a low-key but complicated detective....more
Lucas Davenport, the Minnesota state cop featured in 19 John Sandford novels, has his hands full this time. The Republican National Covention in is inLucas Davenport, the Minnesota state cop featured in 19 John Sandford novels, has his hands full this time. The Republican National Covention in is in Minneapolis to nominate John McCain for the presidency so the police are stretched thin. Lucas is dealing with reports of a right wing radical test-firing a sniper rifle in the area, a professional robbery crew with a history of killing cops has come to town to steal the illicit slush funds that come with political events, an old enemy has targeted Davenport's family for revenge, and his adopted daughter has decided to deal with that threat herself.
This is another great Sandford thriller, and there isn't much to add past that description without spoiling anything. If you've read him, you know what you're getting, and if you haven't, you should give him a try if you like these types of books.
I'm sometimes puzzled at how much I like Sandford. On the surface, it seems like he's just another mystery hack with a couple of books hitting the NYT bestseller list on schedule every year. But his books, which are so plainly written as to almost be screenplays, have tightly constructed plots and a great page-turning vibe to them. When things get rolling you simply have to see what happens next.
One reason I'm such a fan is the Davenport character himself. Lucas started 20 years ago as what would now be almost a stereotypical modern fictional detective. He was smart, tough and rich due to his development of role playing games (later computer games) and cruised Minneapolis in his Porsche. This could have been like a bad character from an '80s TV show, but Sandford saved it by giving Davenport a dark, ruthless, manipulative side that has the character sometimes using people in dangerous ways to get his man. Plus, he's never been above pulling some kind of illegal act, including murder.
What also makes Davenport interesting is that Sandford has allowed him to age and grow. Lucas started as a playboy bachelor who sometimes flirted with a crushing clinical depression. Over the years, he has taken new law enforcement jobs, gotten married, had children, and gotten more involved in the political side of the job. So unlike other characters from long running series who remain static (Like Robert B. Parker's Spenser did in his later books.) Davenport continues to seem fresh. I'm always glad to pick up a new book, aside from the story, just to check in and see what's going on in Lucas's life.
Next: Lucas tries to protect his wife from a biker gang in Storm Prey....more
Alyssa Austin is a wealthy widow that returns home to find a bloodstain on her wall and that her adult daughter Francis has Lucas Davenport goes goth.
Alyssa Austin is a wealthy widow that returns home to find a bloodstain on her wall and that her adult daughter Francis has vanished. With no body and no leads, the police can’t do much with the case. After a friend of Francis is murdered by a mysterious goth woman known only as Fairy, Alyssa turns to her friend Weather for help.
Weather just so happens to be married to Lucas Davenport, one of the top cops with Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension as well as being the governor’s chief rat catcher. Weather pushes Lucas to look into it both as a favor to her friend and to get him out of his annual post-winter funk. Lucas starts reluctantly at his wife’s nagging, but soon finds himself intrigued by the mystery of Francis’s disappearance.
As Lucas starts talking to people in the Minneapolis goth community, he's also running an extended stake-out on the pregnant girlfriend of a dangerous Lithuanian gangster who skipped town in case he comes back for her. Lucas also has to deal with a mountain of political bullshit due to the upcoming Republican National Convention.
I’ve sung John Sandford’s praises in plenty of reviews here on Goodreads, and I don’t have much to add to them. He’s several notches above the typical thriller hacks who own the best seller lists because he creates intriguing stories with characters you can relate to and he routinely builds momentum and suspense to the point where a reader may find themselves on their feet instead of in their chair because the tension won‘t allow them to sit still.
One thing that caught my eye here was the way Sandford portrays Davenport’s attitude about his job. It's a thriller cliché to have the hero horrified and burned out by the crimes they investigate, yet they continue to do it because only they have the knowledge and skill to stop the killer, etc. etc. Lucas isn’t like that. He enjoys his work both for the mental aspect of figuring things out and the adrenaline rush of throwing on a bulletproof vest and crashing through a door. While he’s flirted with a clinical depression at times, a genuine mystery to solve can snap him out of it like in this book where his wife is tired of him moping around after a long dull winter and basically kicks him in the ass to get him revved up again. He’s not cold or immune to the suffering of others, but he can ration out his empathy so that he’s not consumed by it.
I also realized I’m probably not giving Sandford enough credit in the writing department. He was a Pulitzer Prize winning print journalist and sometimes his plain prose hides genuine cleverness. Like this:
“Lucas slurped the coffee, which tasted sort of brown, like a cross between real coffee and the paper sack it came in.”
This is another highly entertaining entry in the Prey series. It’s not quite up to the recent level that Sandford has hit with the crazily good Buried Prey or the Virgil Flowers story in Bad Blood, but it’s a great example of how Sandford thrillers stand out from the pack.
There’s a couple of classic crime novel scenarios I’m also ready to read. One is the standard noir plot in which a guy falls for a married woman, and There’s a couple of classic crime novel scenarios I’m also ready to read. One is the standard noir plot in which a guy falls for a married woman, and they decide to kill her husband. The other is when somebody stumbles across something valuable like money or drugs that belongs to bad people. Leave it to a legend like Lawrence Block to combine those two.
Joe Martin is a grifter who skips out on one giant hotel bill and goes to Atlantic City to run up another one. Along the one he steals some luggage at the train station and is shocked to find a huge amount of heroin in one of the bags. While he’s trying to figure out what to do with the drugs, he meets and instantly falls for Mona, a gorgeous woman who is unhappily married to a rich man. Before you can say “Double Indemnity", Joe begins to plan a murder.
This is billed as the first novel that Lawrence Block published under his own name, and it’s one he can be proud of. While it has some familiar noir tropes in the set-up, the book takes some twists that do not go where you’d expect them too. There’s great character work done so that you feel some sympathy for Joe even as he immediately shows himself to be a criminal who will take advantage of anyone.
Block started out with a great one here, and just kept getting better over the years....more
It's Christmas Eve 1979 in Wichita, Kansas, and attorney Charlie Arglist is trying to kill some time before fleeing town with the money he and his parIt's Christmas Eve 1979 in Wichita, Kansas, and attorney Charlie Arglist is trying to kill some time before fleeing town with the money he and his partner have stolen from the local crime boss they work for. A huge storm is complicating matters, but Charlie doesn't let that stop him from visiting bars and strip clubs as he prepares to leave, and he runs into a variety of characters who are all in the middle of their own drama.
This is a bit of an oddball because it's technically a crime novel, but the crime part doesn't really come into play until the last act. The first part is spent just establishing this world that Charlie has been helping run as an employee of what passes for organized crime in the area. Along with that, we get this character study of a guy who willingly gave up a struggling law practice to act as a kind of a branch manager for the real boss. Like a lot of middle management, Charlie gets no respect from anyone above or below him, but he's still a little wistful as he visits some of his haunts for what he's sure will be the last time.
It's dark, funny, sleazy, and brutal all at the same time, and the late '70s Wichita in the midst of a huge storm makes for a fantastic backdrop to the whole sordid tale. ...more
Pretty solid crime story about a screw-up of a cop who decides to help an abused woman he likes cover up a crime, and then there's a whole bunch of unPretty solid crime story about a screw-up of a cop who decides to help an abused woman he likes cover up a crime, and then there's a whole bunch of unintended consequences. ...more
Neal Carey is a graduate student who just wants to focus on his studies of 18th century English literature, but his schooling is paid for through an uNeal Carey is a graduate student who just wants to focus on his studies of 18th century English literature, but his schooling is paid for through an unusual arrangement with a bank who occasionally needs some discreet detective work done for its wealthy clients. When the rebellious daughter of a politician runs away just before he is about to enter the national spotlight, Neal is pressed into service to find and return the girl. He trails her to London, but along the way he learns the dark secret that was the reason she left which may also be why some people would rather say her dead than back home.
Like a lot of crime writers Don Winslow got his start with a series before moving on to more ambitious types of books. With Neal Carey he created an interesting lead and gave him an extensive origin story as a street kid with an absentee junkie mother who was trained by one of the bank’s other operatives to be a detective/fixer from a young age.
Overall this is solid start to a great writing career. Winslow’s skill is apparent from the jump, but I may have enjoyed this book more if it had just a little less going on in it. With the main plot, the flashbacks to Neal’s origins, the elaborate scheme to get the young woman away from the pimp/drug dealer she’s living with in London, the inevitable double cross, and a theme about wealth and corruption, etc., etc., - that’s a lot for one average sized novel.
I also got a little annoyed with Neal this time because of his reluctance. Yes, Winslow gives him reasons and motivations for why he doesn’t want to do this job or work for the bank anymore, but an entire book where the lead would rather be doing something else kind of wore me out. Still, it’s an interesting premise for a great writer who was just figuring it all out, and he’d later be able to balance backstory, plot, and character with much more success in a book like The Winter of Frankie Machine. As first efforts go, this is a good one. ...more
Life has changed for Lucas Davenport. Now that he’s a newlywed with an infant son and a new job with the state as the head of a research department onLife has changed for Lucas Davenport. Now that he’s a newlywed with an infant son and a new job with the state as the head of a research department one might think that Lucas has left his days of hunting deadly criminals behind him. But the new gig is with Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and the title is just a bureaucratic cover for what he’ll really be doing as the guy who ‘fixes shit’.
The governor needs someone to deal quickly with crimes that can be sensitive politically, and it doesn’t get much more politically sensitive then an interracial couple found hanging from a tree outside a small town. Lucas and his old cop buddy Del are dispatched to the frozen wastes of northern Minnesota, and since a race-baiting political activist with an appetite for publicity is on the way Davenport has to kick the investigation into overdrive in an effort to stop a potential media outrage fest.
It turns out that there are a couple of illegal operations running in the rural area, and the victims were connected to them. Lucas finds a valuable local guide in twelve-year-old Letty West. Letty is an smart girl who is practically raising herself thanks to an alcoholic mother. Tough and self-reliant, Letty discovered the bodies while out trapping muskrats, and since she finds it all very interesting she finds excuses to keep hanging around Lucas.
Shifting Lucas and Del to new positions gives us some new supporting characters like the political savvy governor and thuggish BCA agents Shrake and Jenkins who provide plenty of humor. The new job also puts Lucas on a bit of a learning curve. His skill at manipulating people has always given him a feel for dealing with political and media angles, but he’s operating on a whole new level here. Having the governor behind him also allows Lucas to throw some serious weight around when need be, and busting balls to get things moving is something that he’s very good at.
With the changes to Davenport’s personal and professional life, this book signaled a new phase in the Prey series. A bit older and calmer, Lucas’s investigations would seem more like a job he enjoys rather than just a way for him to avoid depression and boredom. The additional authority also seems to suit him, and this plays into the spin-off series featuring Virgil Flowers in which Lucas is the boss. The plots also shift away from often being about crazy serial killers stalking women into more offbeat type crimes
The aspect that Lucas would grow and change a bit through the course of the series is something that I‘ve always liked. Too many series get stale and tired when the author is scared too veer to far away from what’s worked before, and it’s Sandford willingness to shake things up a bit that’s helped Davenport’s longevity as a character.
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