Storm Prey [Mass Market Paperback]

A gang of bumbling bikers have robbed the hospital's pharmacy - accidentally killing the pharmacist while doing so - at the direction of a drug-addled hospital insider. Lucas Davenport and his crew are drawn into the investigation, and Lucas has a personal stake in the outcome as his physician wife Weather works at the hospital, and may be a witness able to identify at least one of the perps.

"Storm Prey" is Sanford's twentieth novel in the Lucas Davenport series. First, the good news.

The story rocks along in an engaging manner, involving the reader not only in the crime that Lucas is on course to solve, but also in the fates of a pair of twins conjoined at the head at birth whom Lucas's wife Weather is trying to surgically separate.

The two plot lines progress in tandem, and are great counterpoints to each other. We also see the protagonist of one of Sanford's other series - Virgil Flowers - involved in this story in a peripheral role, yet another fun element.

The bad guys are a mixed bag of bumblers, druggies, and a sociopathic stone killer wandering through the story, bumping into each other with conflicting motivations and goals. The investigation almost solves itself for Lucas as these dimwits try to outsmart each other in avoiding capture, and getting away with the loot.

The "Prey" novels are always a fun ride through the roller-coaster criminal landscape, and this book is no exception.

BUT... and now the bad news. In a couple of scenes, Lucas thinks back to cases earlier in his career which were actually the stories of the earliest Davenport novels, and that reminded me - a fan from the first book lo so many years ago - that the early Davenport was actually a much darker, more complex character who faced much more challenging foes. Those early novels were complex thrillers with heavy undertones and psychological shadings, all of which are missing from the series nowadays. It's transformed into more of a procedural along the lines of the Ed McBain 87th Precinct books.

So, still four stars, because it's fun for what it is. But I do remember when the "Prey" series was solid five star material, and I miss that level of achievement.

As a long-time Lucas Davenport devotee, I am always happy to drop in on him and his family and associates. I was particularly looking forward to "Storm Prey" which was described as "superb" by one pre-publication reviewer. The actual book was a let-down. Don't get me wrong -- I admire the consistent quality of Sandford's work, and the fact that he has not moved into that "I don't have to make any effort anymore" space so common with bestselling authors (see, DeMille's "Wildfire" for a horrible example). But this time it all seemed to much the same to me. Some baddies do something bad. We know who they are but Davenport does not, at first. We know the story will begin thus, but in the past it has been Davenport's path to identifying the criminals that made the story fascinating (that and the regular characters, who remain fascinating). But here the "puzzle" part is too easy and the baddies too uninteresting. It really takes Davenport no time at all to identify the malefactors, and it's all luck. Where's the fun in that? the "Aha" moments? In addition, I would really enjoy a villain who is neither an unraveling psychopath nor a big dumb psychopath. You know, someone who might challenge Davenport, rather than being caught because he leaves an ever-widening swath of blood behind him.

All of the above does not mean I did not enjoy "Storm Prey" -- I did. But I would not call it "superb" by any means, or anywhere near Sandford's best work.

This is the 20th of John Sandford's "Prey" novels, featuring Minnesota cop Lucas Davenport and his band of merry, lethal, smart men. Perhaps it's fitting then, that this book is a marathon rather than a sprint... a down-to-earth, detailed police procedural rather than the edge-of-your-seat tension that you sometimes get with the Sandford books.

But that's part of the draw of this series... it's not just the same book over and over. I can actually remember the plots from these books, and how the characters have matured and changed. That's a good thing.

For me, the most appealing thing about the Prey series -- heck, all of the Sandford books -- is that the protagonists are smart and they catch the bad guys because the bad guys are dumb. No criminal master-minds here. Sure, things get pretty violent sometimes, but Davenport and his crew generally manage to avoid a lot of brawn by using brain. For me, the best line of the book was when Virgil Flowers tells Davenport that it's good Davenport's state squad is barging in on a Minneapolis investigation. "The point remains," Virgil said. "Never hurts to have a little more IQ on the job." Sometimes, it seems like the world wants to completely ignore the tremendous truth there is in that statement.

Sandford's dialogue is nitty and gritty and rings absolutely true, and his prose enfolds it so seamlessly that it's entirely possible to sit down with one of his books and find that you've finished it four hours later, without really knowing just how that happened. After those four hours, I finished this book feeling better about the world, and that's not something you can say about most novels, either. It feels good to remember that men and women like the ones in this book do exist -- courageous, dutiful, scatalogical, funny, determined and smart.

Can't wait for the next one!