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The books in this series aren't mysteries per se - the criminals/murderers/bad guys are usually identified early on as the author changes the narrative to take the reader "inside" their heads as well as witnessing their actions - but police procedurals, very entertaining police procedurals. it fits right in. Davenport, originally a Minneapolis Police officer is now an agent for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension which allows him to pick and choose his cases - the more twisted the better.
When the case reaches a dead end - no body, no girl, no perps - Lucas' wife asks him to take a look into it as the missing young woman is the daughter of a friend of hers. No heavy lifting here, just another straightforward page- turner, entertaining without taxing the brain. Since all he's doing is surveillance on the spouse of a felon on the lam and in the best interest of domestic tranquility, Lucas takes on the case and the hi-jinx begin.Even though Lucas gets a bit roughed up in Phantom Prey and the psychological twist concerning our villain is "novel" I still enjoyed this book and it's a worthy addition to the series, i.e.
Phantom Prey is the 18th book in the Lucas Davenport series. Our hero is dragged into the disappearance of a young woman who flirted with the "Goth" lifestyle. Perfect airport reading, etc.
Lucas is also independently wealthy which helps with his comings and goings. Lucas and his cohorts are tough guys and the books contain all the requisite violence, action and dark humor associated with such cowboys.Phantom Prey follows this formula.
Take a vacation. Normally I like this author. This book was way too freaky psycho, split personality, gore, psycho babble, tired plot formula.
Lucas and Del sit across the street, drink sodas and eat chips, and talk about other cases, watching the woman the whole time.This is a very good book in a number of ways. Just as Lucas gets involved, one of the daughter's friends is murdered under circumstances that make it look as if the killings must be connected somehow, and the investigation widens.Meanwhile, Lucas and his partner Del are watching a drug lord's wife. Alyssa Austin is a successful area businesswoman, a widower with a grown daughter. I didn't like the way the main killer was revealed, and it does drag in the middle a bit (maybe 30 pages could have been cut) but the story is well-written and I like the characters, of course. When they arrived and examined the scene, they determined that someone (later identified by DNA as the daughter) was killed here, or at least bled a lot. It must be a hundred years ago that I read Rules of Prey when it was first out in paperback.
This latest entry isn't the best, but it's by no means the worst either, and it's quite entertaining.In this installment, a friend of Lucas's wife, Weather, calls her. The guy jumped bail a year ago, and hasn't been seen since, but the wife is living openly in an apartment, having lost access to all of the tangible wealth that being a drug lord's wife entails. I'd never heard of John Sandford (at that point I think there were a couple of Kidd novels already out) but the premise sounded interesting, and frankly I enjoyed the book a great deal. Alyssa doesn't think the police who are investigating the crime are doing a good enough job, so she uses her connection with Weather to get Lucas Davenport, Minnesota's top investigator, into the investigation. I would recommend it. I've been following the character (though not necessarily the author: I've never read the Kidd books) ever since.
Alyssa returned home one evening to find a few small bloodstains on her wall, and called the police.
Very disjointed. Had to check the front cover to make sure someone else had not helped write it. I was very disapointed in this book. Normally Sandford is an excellent writer, however this was not one of his best works.
The problem with a long-time series character is keeping him (or her) fresh. The missing young woman, Frances Austin, was spending time in the Goth community of Minneapolis, which may be linked to the murder. As originally introduced in Rules of Prey, Davenport had a bit of an edge, with both his constant womanizing and his willingness to break the rules to solve a crime. This darker Davenport is more appealing and redeems a story with a rather pedestrian plot.In Phantom Prey, Davenport is asked to investigate the case of his wife's friend's daughter, who disappeared under mysterious and violent circumstances: the only trace of her is some blood.
It is to Sandford's credit that he seems to realize how contrived it is and reveals Fairy's identity by mid-book, not saving it for a big twist at the end. The link seems more obvious when a Goth girl known as Fairy starts killing people she has linked to Frances disappearance.Other things are going on that are occupying Davenport's attention. More important is Davenport's effort to capture a notorious drug dealer, an effort that will entail keeping the dealer's wife under surveillance. Overall, however, this is a decent book, one that should easily satisfy Sandford fans. Many readers will have little trouble figuring out who Fairy is, and the key to her identity uses one of the more tired cliches of suspense fiction. Certainly, over the course of eighteen or so Prey novels, the character of Lucas Davenport has had his bouts of staleness.
A lesser sub-plot involves Davenport planning security for an upcoming Republican convention. It's not the best Davenport book, but even an okay one is good enough to be pretty entertaining. In later novels, Davenport would become far more domesticated and less interesting; books with a tamer Davenport generally didn't stand out from the crowd of serial killer thrillers.Happily, John Sandford's Phantom Prey shows elements of the old Davenport, whether he's ogling a woman he has under surveillance, flirting with another witness or looking the other way as a nasty criminal gets a little street justice while "resisting arrest". As a state cop, he's not really involved in the case, but he offers to at least give it a look.
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