Chosen Prey [Paperback]

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Berkley Books; Regular Print/Single Titl edition (2001)
• ASIN: B002Q83MC2
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (104 customer reviews)

More About the Author

John Sandford was born John Camp on February 23, 1944, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He attended the public schools in Cedar Rapids, graduating from Washington High School in 1962. He then spent four years at the University of Iowa, graduating with a bachelor's degree in American Studies in 1966. In 1966, he married Susan Lee Jones of Cedar Rapids, a fellow student at the University of Iowa. He was in the U.S. Army from 1966-68, worked as a reporter for the Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian from 1968-1970, and went back to the University of Iowa from 1970-1971, where he received a master's degree in journalism. He was a reporter for The Miami Herald from 1971-78, and then a reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer-Press from 1978-1990; in 1980, he was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, and he won the Pulitzer in 1986 for a series of stories about a midwestern farm crisis. From 1990 to the present he has written thriller novels. He's also the author of two non-fiction books, one on plastic surgery and one on art. He is the principal financial backer of a major archaeological project in the Jordan Valley of Israel, with a website at www.rehov.org. In addition to archaeology, he is deeply interested in art (painting) and photography. He both hunts and fishes. He has two children, Roswell and Emily, and one grandson, Benjamin. His wife, Susan, died of metastasized breast cancer in May, 2007, and is greatly missed.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SANDFORD LEADS THE SUSPENSE GENRE!, May 10, 2001

By 

Brad Stonecipher - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chosen Prey (Hardcover)

All of us Sandford fans deeply look forward each year for early May to come around because that mostly means the release of a new Prey novel! In "Chosen Prey," Minneapolis Detective, Lucas Davenport, along with Marcy Sherrill, Sloan, Del, and Weather (Lucas fiance), return in one of John Sandford's most interesting and exciting Prey novels that he has written. The plot: James Qatar is a prestegious history professor at St. Patrick University in Minneapolis. He has a very secretive life on the side. He enjoys playing kinky sex games with women he barely knows and ends up killing them for pleasure. He also enjoys taking pictures of women and distorting their figures to look like they are participating in grotesque sexual activities. His method of murder: a rope. James Qatar is a very sick individual that has killed over eight women in three states. None of the cops have been able to link him to the murder. When a murdered women turns up in the barren woods, close to home to Lucas Davenport, he vows to find this killer who killed this beautiful woman. After investigating for a while, and with the assistance of and out of state officer, he discovers that three other women have mysteriously disappeared in Wisconsin. All these murders/ disappearances are connected. Can Davenport and the gang get James Qatar before he claims his next victim? The twelfth novel in this amazing series is a definite success!

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 4 stars as part of a series 2 stars as a stand alone book, August 30, 2001

By 

Andy Edie (Kansas City, Missouri) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chosen Prey (Hardcover)

This was a hard book for me to rate. I have read the previous books in Sandford's Prey series, eleven in all. As a reader who is familiar with all long running characters and plot threads, reading this book was like running into an old friend you have not seen in years, and talking like you live next door to each other. It was a pleasure to read simply for the continued evolution of the characters I have grown to know and love.

On the other hand, as a passable, stand alone novel, Sandford falls so far short of his past triumphs that I wonder if this does not signal the end for Lucas Davenport and company. Gone is all the tension, suspense, and thrill-of-the-chase that was so prevalent in many of the early Prey books. It has been replaced with a tired reworking of past Prey villains and a soap opera pace. In fact, the hunt for the bad guy plays a secondary role to Lucas' relationship with his ex-fiancée. It is writing like this that leads me to believe that Sandford is trying to stage a stopping point in this series.

If you have not read the previous Prey books, perhaps your money or time would be better spent reading a different book. If you are a Prey veteran, then carry on.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better than Easy Prey,but......, July 8, 2001

By 

Surya B (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chosen Prey (Hardcover)

The 12th installment in the prey series starts off promisingly, slows down in the middle and again picks off in the end.This book is definitely better than the authors last release Easy Prey but it still falls short of expectations.The novel introduces the killer James Qatar, right in the first page and then develops the character of the killer quite convincingly and that's what makes this book interesting and better than Easy Prey because in this novel the author takes pain to develop each and every character,but the main drawback atleast according to me is the lack of interaction between the killer and the Lucas Davenport,if the author had atleast introduced some cat and mouse game between these two characters then the book would have been more fun.So basically this book runs on two parallel plots, one plot runs on Qatars actions and his character devlopment which according to me has been handled quite convincingly and the other plot runs on Lucas trying to find the killer which is not handled properly at all and even the clues by which Lucas traces the killer are far fetched and has got nothing to do with his intelligence and has got more to do by the mistakes made by the killer.Overall this book is better than EasyPrey because the loose ends are very few,the Qatars character is very well developed and the pace of the novel is very fast.If you are a fan of Lucas Davenport then you won't be disappointed.