I recently finished reading John Sandford's newest novel, "Shock Wave." Earlier in the year, I had read an reviewed Sandford's other book this year, "Buried Prey", which featured Sandford's signature character, Minnesota police detective chief Lucas Davenport. "Shock Wave" features Sandford's other series character, police detective Virgil Flowers.
Flowers was actually a minor character in the Davenport books who Sandford, I am happy to say, decided to spin off in his own series of novels. He still works for Davenport in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), and Lucas appears "off-screen" in these novels, usually as a sort of sounding board for Virgil as he conducts his investigations.
In this novel, a huge big box retailer, PyeMart, is planning on opening a new store in the small Minnesota town of Butternut Falls. Having this store in the community would virtually destroy existing small businesses in the community and, essentially, ruin the lives of many, many people in the town. So someone intends to stop it by planting bombs at both PyeMart headquarters and at or near the proposed construction site. Several people have been killed by these bombs. Finding the bomber is Virgil's job.
It's a great story with terrifically drawn characters. (There is one scene where Virgil is interviewing a teen aged boy who is working as a desk clerk at the motel where he is staying about a woman who might be somehow involved with a possible suspect. It is a classic scene.) This is the I believe the fifth Virgil flowers novel that Sandford has written, and while they are not yet quite the equal of the Lucas Davenport "Prey" novels, they are rapidly closing in on them.
Check them out.
By the way, when I read stories with series characters like these, I always try to picture the actors who would portray them if they were made into movies. I always had a hard time coming up with an actor for Lucas Davenport. I have recently earned that USA Network has made a movie of the book "Certain Prey" and that it will star Mark Harmon as Lucas. It will air next Sunday, November 6. I'm thinking that Harmon might be a little too old for the part, but I am also thinking that he just may be able to pull it off. I'm looking forward to watching it.
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