Twisted Prey. John Sandford’s 30th Prey Book, And One Of His Best.

I have read every book he has published over the past 20 years or so, no matter which of the streams he is writing to. By streams I means, different series of novels centred around certain characters.

His main novel stream is called the “Prey” series and it basically centres on a character called Lucas Davenport, who was a cop in Minneapolis, then became an investigator for something called the (Minnesota) Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, then he retired and became a kind of go-to crime solver for the Governor and finally over the last couple of books, a US Marshall, who is given pretty much free rein to investigate anything he wants.

There are about 30 books in the Prey series, and 11 books in a closely related series starring an investigator in Minnesota, who works/worked for Davenport. His name Is Virgil Flowers, and he is pretty much my favourite character in this entire genre.

There’s another series about a computer hacker who is a friend of Davenport’s named Kidd. There are only 4 books in that series and they are all pretty decent in their own right.

Like a few other writers I read, Mr Sandford’s main character was fully developed right from the jump. Lucas Davenport is an ex-college athlete (hockey) who is independently wealthy as a result of some game development he did in the early days of the Internet. So he’s not working for a living. He’s working because he likes bringing down the bad guys. And he likes it a lot.

But besides the main character, what makes his books work so well is his writing style. It’s flippant but not too much. His characters are mostly all cops and politicians and are all smart-asses but not irritatingly so. The banter, between these cops especially is always a lot of fun. I don’t know if real cops talk like Sandford’s cops, but the world of law enforcement would be a better place if they did.

Twisted Prey, which is Sandford’s most recent in paperback, takes place mainly in the Washington DC area where a Republican senator asks for Davenport’s help to figure out who is trying to kill him.

Since I hate spoilers, I won’t tell you much more than that other than to say this this turns into a delightfully complex political story, that, mercifully, has nothing to do with all the current bullshit going on in Washington these days.

John Sandford is one of those writers who are at the very top of the thriller heap, along with Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch), Lee Child (Jack Reacher) & David Baldacci (Take Your Pick).

These guys all sell books in the millions, have their books translated into 30 to 40 languages and now, with the advent of streaming TV, have had almost all of their work optioned for either features or series.

Other than the stuff I have to read, and the odd new writer I discover, these are the guys I read the most. And they have never let me down.

If you want to know more about John Sandford, you can check him out at johnsandford.org.

Jim is also an ex-ad agency writer and art director and has run his own creative consultancy, Onwords & Upwords, since 1989. He lives with his wife in the Niagara area of Ontario, and works with companies that are trying to make a difference in the world.

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