April 2, 2012
A horrific crime—the torture murders of Patrick Brooks, his wife, son, daughter, and three dogs at their palatial lakeside home in Wayzata, Minn.—propels bestseller Sandford’s solid 22nd novel featuring Lucas Davenport of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (after 2011’s Buried Prey). That DEA officials believe the killings to be the work of Los Criminales del Norte brings Mexican detective David Rivera and assistant Ana Martínez to the Twin Cities area, though Brooks’s Spanish-language company, Sunnie Software, which peddled its product in Mexico, appears to have been an unlikely money laundry. Since the author makes it clear who the bad guys are early on, the slow revelation of what they’ve done and how they’ve done it gives the story its kick. Meanwhile, Lucas, after a couple of meth addicts rob him at an ATM, turns for help to series regular Virgil Flowers, who gets surprising results. Once again, Sandford smoothly blends action and suspense with a soupçon of humor. Author tour. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM.
April 15, 2012
Lucas Davenport takes the scenic route toward a confrontation with the two practiced crooks who had the bad luck to rob him. Just as he's leaving an ATM with $500, the star of Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is held up by a pair of obvious meth users, a man and a woman. Naturally, Lucas vows vengeance. Before he can catch up with the pair, however, he and his team will have to wade through a thicket of unrelated violence visited on the Midwest by a trio of Mexican gunslingers. The hit men, whom Sandford (Buried Prey, 2011, etc.) inventively dubs Uno, Dos and Tres, first pop up on Lucas' radar when they torture and execute Patrick Brooks, founder of Sunnie Software, and his wife and children. A preliminary investigation ties the murders to a money-laundering operation that crosses the border, and the connection is strengthened when the Mexican government sends Inspector David Rivera and Sgt. Ana Martinez north as observers. They end up doing a lot more than observing because the three killers are just getting started. On orders from their mysterious boss, Big Voice, they're pursuing a fortune in gold that's gotten stuck halfway through the money-laundering chute and cauterizing any leaks among the system's conspirators while they're at it. Despite the high mortality rate, the procedural work is more grueling than fascinating, and the criminals are mostly as nondescript as their monikers. But the climactic gunfight is deeply satisfying, and the very last line of dialogue is perfect.
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May 1, 2012
Wayzata, Minnesota, is not the place where one would expect an entire familyhusband, wife, kids, even the dogsto be tortured and murdered. To Lucas Davenport, of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, it looks a lot like the carnage wrought by vengeful Mexican drug gangs. But this family obviously was not in the drug trade. So why? The trail takes Davenport to a Minneapolis bank, where credit cards were being used to launder Mexican cartel money. But the credit-card account is empty. Someone has ripped off the cartel, and the drug lords intend to butcher people until someone tells them where the money is. The twenty-fourth Prey novel is the usual Sandford mix of tight plotting, gallows humor, and explosive action. This one has a twist, though, which reveals a creeping weakness in Davenport's analytic skills. A white-knuckle page-turner. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Last May, Stephen King said, If you haven't read Sandford, you have been missing one of the great summer-read novelists of all time. A nice jump start for a new publicity campaign.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)