Another intense murder mystery.

16th in the Lucas Davenport series.

Very good as are most of the Sandford novels.

The first body is of a young woman, found on a Minneapolis riverbank, her throat cut, her body scourged and put on display. Whoever did this, Lucas knows, is pushed by brain chemistry, there is something wrong with him. This isn’t a bad love affair.

The second body is found a week later, in a farmhouse six miles south. Same condition, same display — except this time it is a man. Nothing to link the two murders, nothing to indicate that the killings end here. …

A suspect emerges early: a man recently released from a prison hospital and who now seems to have cut himself free from his court-imposed ankle bracelet and disappeared. But the more Lucas investigates, the more he wonders: Is this really the man? Could he really have done this all by himself? And where has he gone to, anyway?

And meanwhile, a predator waits….

An easy read. Quite entertaining.

My Mom and I both read this book.

I did appreciate the naiveté and optimism of the lead character — in the face of multiple personal disasters.

The plot provides enough twists and turns to keep it interesting.

The Switch: A Novel (2017)

Michael Tanner is on his way home from a business trip when he accidentally picks up the wrong MacBook in an airport security line. He doesn’t notice the mix-up until he arrives home in Boston, but by then it’s too late. Tanner’s curiosity gets the better of him when he discovers that the owner is a US senator and that the laptop contains top secret files.    
 
When Senator Susan Robbins realizes she’s come back with the wrong laptop, she calls her young chief of staff, Will Abbott, in a panic. …

Though I wasn’t impressed with his Nick Heller series of books, I’ll definitely be reading more Joseph Finder.

Not his best.

But still worth reading.

Extreme Prey (2016)

Marlys Purdy is a crazy woman who has endured the political system long enough. She blames the political system for the loss of the farm she had with her dead husband and the continued financial system that perpetuates the same cycle.

She is ready to take action and stop Michaela Bowden, a potential Democratic presidential candidate from going any further in the campaign in Iowa.

Marlys has a plan. Together with her derange son who has had some military service in Iraq, they put their plan into action. …

Arlene’s Book Club review

Lucas Davenport gets the call to save the day.

As usual.

The newest James Patterson book (Jan. 2025) as I post is something of a departure from his standard template.

The style of writing is simplistic — which somehow suits the honest, sincere hero of the story ➙ Texas Ranger Rory Yates.

The Texas Murders, 3rd in the Texas Ranger series.

Texas Ranger Rory Yates protects his home state wearing a five-pointed silver badge and carrying a Sig Sauer.  

When a native woman disappears on the summer solstice, clues point to a cold case. 

Yates, a quick-draw champion, partners with expert archer Ava Cruz of the Tigua Tribal police.

The investigation leads to the edges of Texas’s most unforgiving landscape, where the officers take dead aim with every shot in their arsenals. 

JamesPatterson.com

22 Seconds (2022) is one of the Women’s Murder Club (novel series).

A good one.

Detective Lindsay Boxer‘s daughter is age-4. That’s how I keep track of these newer books. 😀

Fictional California has enacted a NEW law restricting the most dangerous firearms. Needless to say, some of the Gundamentalists are revolting.

There’s buzz of a last-ditch shipment of drugs and weapons crossing the Mexican border ahead of new restrictive gun laws. Before Lindsay can act, her top informant tips her to a case that hits disturbingly close to home.
 
Former cops. Professional hits. All with the same warning scrawled on their bodies:
 
You talk, you die.

The book Eyes of Prey had a terrific BAD GUY.

He’s an insane pathologist drug addict who studies the moment of death of his victims. He removes their eyes so they can’t look at him from the afterlife.

Silent Prey is a bit of a sequel.

… police reach out for the man who knew Bekker best, but when Lucas arrives, he finds unexpected danger as well.

For Lily Rothenburg, the policewoman whose intense affair with Lucas has never completely faded, is there too. Now, consumed with her own investigation of a group of rogue killers within the police department, she draws Lucas into her orbit again, until their hunts merge, their twin obsessions driving them ever closer to the edge . . . and then over.

For me, this book was not focused enough on one plot line.

AND it’s incomprehensible authorities couldn’t catch him sooner.

The 2013 book in the Lucas Davenport series is excellent.

Davenport tries to solve the murder(s) before a Senate election night.

Time is short.

He knows the killer(s). But can’t prove it.

Silken Prey is a novel about political corruption.  

… In this novel, we meet one of the most narcissistic of the bunch, democratic candidate for the Senate Taryn Grant, a wealthy, gorgeous, sexy, and driven woman who will do whatever is necessary to achieve her goal to fill the Senate seat for the State of Minnesota -even if that involves murder. …

A man named Tubbs disappears and is feared dead. He is suspected of having planted child pornography on the republican candidate’s computer, resulting in a highly-publicized scandal that threatens to ensure Taryn Grant the senate seat. ..

Book Review: ‘Silken Prey’

Number 27 in the entertaining Lucas Davenport series.

I wouldn’t call this one of the best — but I still enjoyed it.

Thanks to some very influential people whose lives he saved (including the President), Lucas is no longer working for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, but for the U.S. Marshals Service, and with unusual scope.

He gets to pick his own cases, whatever they are, wherever they lead him.

… A Biloxi, Mississippi, drug-cartel counting house gets robbed, and suitcases full of cash disappear, leaving behind five bodies, including that of a six-year-old girl.

Davenport takes the case, which quickly spirals out of control, as cartel assassins, including a torturer known as the “Queen of home-improvement tools” compete with Davenport to find the Dixie Hicks shooters who knocked over the counting house.

Things get ugly real fast, and neither the cartel killers nor the holdup men give a damn about whose lives Davenport might have saved; to them, he’s just another large target.

Over past months, the author I’m reading most is John Sandford.

Saturn Run (2015) is a big departure from his usual murder mysteries.

It’s Science fiction, co-written by photography expert Ctein.

The year is 2066. …

The USA and China send spaceships to investigate what appears to be some kind of object near Saturn.

The race is on.

… an epic tale of courage, treachery, resourcefulness, secrets, surprises, and astonishing human and technological discovery, as the members of a hastily thrown-together crew find their strength and wits tested against adversaries both of this earth and beyond.

The alien technology revealed is fascinating.

And the plot — I found — quite original.

Certainly there was too much scientific mumble-jumble for this reader.

And the pacing was too slow for me. I wish the book had been shorter.

But it’s worth reading. Especially for fans of Science Fiction.

I enjoyed the last few paragraphs. Sandy had been arrested and sentenced to five years in prison — but …