"John Sandford writes the best police procedurals on the market today"

The first body that of Angela Larson was found in a posed position, her body scourged, her neck sliced open, and ligature marks on her hands. The second corpse Adam Rice is found in the same manner with his young son killed as an afterthought. Lucas Davenport, who was at both crime scenes, concludes that the same person did the killings. When the news leaks to the media, parole officer Mark Fox Calls Davenport and tells him he thinks his parolee Charlie Pope, who was just released from St. John's mental institution for raping and strangling a woman was the perpetrator.

Charlie is nowhere to be found. His trailer is deserted, he failed to show up for his job and the electronic surveillance bracelet he was forced to wear was cut open. He gets in contact with newspaper reporter Russell Ignace of the Star Tribune and tells him that he has a third victim that he will kill next. When Lucas learns of this, he leads a massive search to find the perpetrator but he is too late. Now Lucas really is determined to do whatever it takes to find and cage the killer.

John Sandford writes the best police procedurals on the market today. The killer is playing a diabolical game, constantly shifting the evidence so it falls on the wrong person and Lucas doesn't catch on to the scheme until three innocent lives are lost. Even when he figured out what is happening, there is so many viable suspects that he and the readers will find it near impossible to identify of the killer. This who-done-it is one of the best Lucas Davenport tales in this long running series.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted May 8, 2005

Summary

Sandford sends series hero Lucas Davenport's family off to London to ensure that domestic concerns never slow the action in this sexy, bloody thriller. Davenport, a Minnesota State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator, had lately been doing political fix-it jobs for the governor, but this time he's got a psychopathic serial killer on his hands. ("All major metro areas had them, sometimes two and three at a time. The public had the impression that they were rare. They weren't.") The first victim, a young woman, was "scourged" with a wire whip; number two, a young man, had his penis cut off. Evidence first points to recently released sex offender Charlie Pope. Though Charlie is pretty dumb and the killer is extremely smart, it takes Davenport and his series partner, Detective Sloan, a while to realize they're chasing the wrong guy. Sandford introduces some lighter moments, the most entertaining about Davenport's new iPod and his quest to compile a list of the 100 best rock songs ever recorded, which every cop on the force gives him suggestions for. These moments allow readers to catch their breath amid the otherwise nonstop tension as the killer taunts the authorities while snaring more victims, and the cops race around the countryside always just a few minutes too late. For those who thought Davenport (and Sandford) were slowing down and showing signs of age and prosperity, this superlative entry will dispel all such notions. This is tough, unstoppable, white-knuckle fiction.