Storm Prey [Hardcover]

John Sandford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 18, 2010 | Series: Prey

The brilliant new Lucas Davenport thriller from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author.

"Sandford's track record as a bestselling author is amazing, but it's not an accident," wrote Booklist of Wicked Prey. "His plotting is sharp, his villains are extraordinarily layered, and his good guys are always evolving.

And this time, there's a storm brewing...Very early, 4:45, on a bitterly cold Minnesota morning, three big men burst through the door of a hospital pharmacy, duct-tape the hands, feet, mouth, and eyes of two pharmacy workers, and clean the place out. But then things swiftly go bad, one of the workers dies, and the robbers hustle out to their truck-and find themselves for just one second face-to-face with a blond woman in the garage: Weather Karkinnen, surgeon, wife of an investigator named Lucas Davenport.

Did she see enough? Can she identify them? Gnawing it over later, it seems to them there is only one thing they can do: Find out who she is, and eliminate the only possible witness...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. At the start of bestseller Sandford's superb 20th Lucas Davenport thriller (after Wicked Prey), the getaway vehicle from a botched early morning robbery, which results in a pharmacy employee's death, almost collides with the car driven by Lucas's surgeon wife, Weather Karkinnen. Weather, who was on her way to work at the Minnesota Medical Research Center, becomes a key witness. Sandford masterfully handles both sides of the equation as the thieves—planner Lyle Mack, his brother, Joe, and their henchmen—work to cover their crime. The investigation belongs to Minneapolis deputy chief Marcy Sherrill, but Lucas of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension pulls out all the stops to protect his wife. Sandford creates additional drama throughout as Weather and a skilled team of doctors perform an operation to separate twins joined at the skull. Sharply drawn characters, intricate plotting, and smooth dialogue make this a sure-fire winner. 500,000 first printing; author tour. (May)
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From Booklist

It was an inside job, and it should have been easy. Rob the pharmacy at Minneapolis’ largest hospital: in, out, wait till things cool down, and then sell the drugs for a half million or so. But the old man had to be a hero. Who knew he’d be on blood thinners and die after he was kicked? A robbery turned murder means Lucas Davenport and his Bureau of Criminal Apprehension team are called in to assist the investigation. There’s another element to the case for Davenport: his wife, Weather, a surgeon at the hospital, may be able to identify one of the killers. The case starts to escalate. An attempt is made on Weather’s life. The bodies of two motorcycle gang members are found in a rural area. Davenport guesses the gang is imploding from the pressure and murdering its members. Weather, under 24-hour guard, is part of a surgical team working to separate conjoined twins in a procedure that’s captured the attention of the world’s media. Meanwhile, Davenport and his team keep finding bodies of likely robbers but can’t seem to isolate either the brains behind the theft or the hospital insider who pointed them at the pharmacy. The twenty-second Prey novel includes most of the elements readers expect: sharp plot, snappy dialogue, and believable action, but the background playfulness and gallows humor that usually fill in the gaps are in short supply. But hey, that’s nitpicking. On balance, this is another fine entry in a wildly popular series. --Wes Lukowsky

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1 edition (May 18, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399156496
• ISBN-13: 978-0399156496
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (164 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,765 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

123 of 127 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Fun "Prey" Novel, but...., April 30, 2010

By 

Brian Baker (Santa Clarita, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Storm Prey (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

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.

99 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars After 20, I still look forward to the next one..., April 20, 2010

By 

Kristi "all my facts come from fiction" (Eastern Iowa) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Storm Prey (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

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!

108 of 122 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit disappointing, April 23, 2010

By 

M. S. Butch (Katonah, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Storm Prey (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

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.