Book Review: "Mad River" by John Sandford

John Sandford has delivered to us another book featuring Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Virgil Flowers, and, as always, Sandford has hit another solid extra base hit to his loyal readers.

In this book, three young rural Minnesota kids, two guys and girl, begin a spree of murder and robbery in rural Minnesota that has the press dubbing them a modern day Bonnie and Clyde.  BCA Chief Lucas Davenport (the star of Sandford's  other series) dispatches Virgil to track down these killers before the death toll gets higher.  

In "Mad River" we get to see Virgil interact with his parents, meet up with an old girl friend, do battle with the local police as well as the three punk killers, tries to find out just what started this killing spree in the first place, and makes some very interesting observations about how people turn out and deal with the lot in life that has been dealt them, often times from the moment of their birth.

Once again, if you like to read thrillers/mysteries/police stories but have never read John Sandford, I urge you to do so. There is a great body of work out their featuring Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers.  You will not be disappointed.

Book Review: "Shock Wave"

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.

(See http://grandstander.blogspot.com/2011/06/book-review-buried-prey.html)

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.