Hidden Prey

I constantly hear people say his books are scary. I’ve been reading his books since the first one. I’ve never been so scared that I couldn’t read or finish one of his books. The truth I’ve never really been that scared. Intrigued? Yes. Caught up in the story? Yes. Want to know more? Yes. Eager for the next book in the series? Yes.
The books are fast paced but fantastic reads.

In the previous book I complained that the author basically turned Lucas Davenport into a “docile” character. He used to be a man of action, who took things into his hands and got things done one way or another. Yet, all he basically did in the previous book was drive around and talk with his partner and young girl. Not much else. I was hoping that this was just an aberration. I was wrong. Basically in this book he did the same thing; drive around in his car talking, but this time with a Russian agent. He really didn’t do anything action wise, so to speak. He has been emasculated. I will give him one more chance. Very disappointed the author decided to go this route.

Sandford isn’t afraid to let you like, or have sympathy for, his “bad guys”. This one was a bit harder, since many readers might have children, or grandchildren. And we know that they have the Iowa kid – the sharp shooter. Perhaps there will be an echo in the next book.

This is Sandfords sixteenth novel involving his protagonist Lucas Davenport. This was not my favorite Davenport story because the investigation of the crime tended to get dragged out with a lot of incorrect decisions. The reader knows who the perpetrators are from the beginning, which is the way Sandford usually presents his stories, but these wrong decisions only delay the inevitable and in my opinion makes for some uninteresting reading. Also, in this book, Davenport works alongside a Russian cop, or spy,–not sure which until later in the booknamed Nadya Kalin, and I think Davenport was way more trusting of her than he should have been. She changed her story about herself several times and for whatever reason, that didn’t seem to bother Davenport. With his previous intuitions, he would have simply refused to work with her any longer.

So, in this book, we find Lucas happily married to Weather and living in their Big New House with their new baby boy named Sam, and a state ward, whom we met in Sandfords previous book, Naked Prey, named Letty West, a very precocious twelve year old little girl. Although she was a major player in Naked Prey, she is barely even mentioned in this one, but Im sure Sandford is keeping her on for a future edition.

A Russian is murdered in a remote part of northern Minnesota near Lake Superior. A street woman named Trey is a witness to the murder. The murderer chases her and is about to kill her, but his gun jams. When he leaves, she goes to the dead man and finds $50,000 on him, which she takes. A week or so later, the murderer sees a woman whom he is convinced was the street woman, Trey. So he follows her and kills her by nearly decapitating her with a sharp wire. But it wasnt Trey!

Turns out the dead man was a Russian and had very high Russian connections, so a Russian cop flies in from Moscow and Lucas flies up from Minneapolis. The FBI becomes involved as do the local police and lots of reporters. Not a whole lot is learned from the initial investigations, despite the high level of investigative power, but we readers soon know the shooter is young Carl Walther, grandson of Grandpa Walther, a communist spy who, during the war, committed some serious acts of atrocity, and who has been running a ring of families engaged in Russian assistance in northern Minnesota since the war ended. A fearless assassin in his own right, he is handing down his expertise to his grandson Carl, which includes random executions. So while theres no doubt who is behind these murders, the clues Lucas and others pursue to uncover the spy ring and the murderer keep the story moving at a reasonable pace, although at one point I felt I had enough of assumptions.

And although Trey, the bag lady who had witnessed the first murder, played a minor role in the story, her initial exposure in the story was extremely well written, so it was a little disappointing that her involvement was very limited in solving the case, but in the end she was able to provide incontrovertible proof as to the killer.

Book 14 in this series was one of my favorites, so I was very disappointed in #15. The plot and the characters seemed more violent while being less interesting. Maybe Ill decide its not important to read every book in this series.

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