Mortal Prey [Hardcover]

John Sandford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 2003

Deputy Chief Lucas Davenport returns in this brilliant new thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of CHOSEN PREY Clara Rinker is a pleasant, soft-spoken, low-key Southerner. She's also the best hitwoman in the business. Lucas Davenport should know - she almost killed him. That was then and this is now. Clara is retired and living in Mexico with her boyfriend, the son of a local drug lord. But her new life is shattered when a sniper's bullet narrowly misses her and kills her boyfriend. The boy's father vows vengeance, but Rinker knows something he doesn't: the boy wasn't the target - she was. Now she is going to have to disappear to find the killer herself. The FBI and DEA draft Lucas Davenport to help track down the missing assassin, and with his fiance deep in wedding preparations, he's really just as happy to go - but he has no idea what he's getting into. For Rinker is as unpredictable as ever, and between her, her old bosses in the St. Louis mob, the Mexican druglord, and the combined, sometimes warring, arms of U.S. law enforcement, this is one case that will get more dangerous as it goes along. And when the shooting starts, anyone standing in the middle won't stand a chance...

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Sandford is the pseudonym of Pulitzer-prize winning journalist John Camp. He is the author of thirteen PREY novels, and three KIDD novels. He lives in Minnesota.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (February 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743206711
• ISBN-13: 978-0743206716
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,095,178 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sad, but good, December 31, 2007

By 

K. Sozaeva "Obsessive bibliophile" (Athens, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mortal Prey (Paperback)

(this review is for the Mass Market paperback edition published by Berkley in May, 2003)
Clara Rinker, last seen in Certain Prey, is back in the latest in the Davenport series. We first find her in Mexico, happily in hiding, where she has met a man, fallen in love and is pregnant and planning to get married. All that falls apart when an assassination attempt on her goes wrong, kills her fiancé and injures her badly enough to cause her to lose her baby. When she recovers, she heads back to the US with vengeance in her heart.

This, of course, puts her back in the FBI's sights, and they call in Lucas Davenport to help track her down. As she systematically kills off the men she used to work for and with, Davenport and the FBI team close in on her - will they catch her first, or will she catch them in the sights of her rifle first?

I always liked Clara Rinker, as does Davenport. She is a very sympathetic character, despite the whole being an assassin thing, and the reader tends to hope she will get away and find a place to hide and get to live happily ever after.

I love all the Davenport books, but I especially like "Certain" and "Mortal" because of Clara's character, and as I mentioned in my review of "Certain Prey," I sure wish things had turned out differently and Clara could have become a recurring character.

Don't miss out on this one, especially if you're a fan of the suspense/thriller genre.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad writing, February 27, 2008

By 

Avid Reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mortal Prey (Paperback)

I counted 7 'ands' in one sentence. That is not good writing. I often found myself rereading sentences more than once to understand what was going on. In fact, I had 10 or so pages left to read and simply put the book down for good because of poor basic writing skills.