Field of
Prey is the latest in a long standing series by John Sanford featuring favored
protagonist, Lucas Davenport. Yet it is
my first venture into this series and left me with a feeling of ‘Wow, what have
I been missing!’ Too often authors lose
their edge when a series spans several decades but I found this installment
relevant and current. I even felt connected to it personally on more than one
front.
Lucas
Davenport is a seasoned investigator for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension
(BCA). His exemplary record should have
propelled him past his current station as lead investigator but his
independence and preference for front line action have caused him to turn down
many promotions. While his record in
solving high profile cases affords him a personal relationship with the
governor, his dislike of bureaucracy and of department politics has capped his
advancement. Davenport is independently
wealthy from a software company he founded in his younger days and is married
to a surgeon. This affords him the
luxury of maintaining his out of the box thinking and maverick style of
investigating that has made him successful.
In Field of
Prey, a cistern full of human remains is found at an old abandoned farmstead
near Redwing, MN. Forensic investigation
concludes that at least fifteen bodies were in the cistern from a time frame
that spans over 20 years… the latest is less than a year old. Lucas is somewhat relieved he is not assigned
to the case initially. He knows this
type of investigation will require a tedious accumulation of data by a large
staff of technicians… better left to the bureaucrats. His colleague Bob Shaffer is put in charge
but Lucas follows the case as it develops.
After several weeks, Shaffer is frustrated by their lack of progress but
follows a hunch and is killed, presumably by their mass murderer. Davenport is asked to take over the
investigation but declines the administrative role to enable him to
independently pursue the perp. He
engages the help of Goodhue County deputy Catrin Mattsson. Mattsson is smart and motivated and knows
many of the locals. Plus she is young,
pretty, and blond all commonalities with the victims. As Davenport closes in on the murderer, he is
distracted by the shooting of one of his direct reports, Del Capslock who was
working an unrelated case in Texas. Del
is also a friend and colleague so Lucas summons the governor’s private plane to
jet him and Del’s wife to El Paso. While
Lucas is away, Catrin is abducted by the mass murderer in Redwing. So the clock starts… can Lucas sift through
all the clues in time to discover the killer’s identity and save Catrin’s life? It’s all there in the data, he just has to
connect the dots.
I highly
recommend Field of Prey to the readers of this genre. Sanford creates an interesting plot and rolls
it out in a way where the reader connects all the dots long before the
characters. The suspense is in
anticipating when the characters will discover what the reader already
knows. Plus Sanford develops likable
slightly flawed characters… flawed in ways that endear them to the reader.
I personally
related to this story on multiple levels.
First, from my heritage of growing up on a farm, I am familiar with old
farmsteads and cisterns. A cistern is a
concrete structure just below the ground’s surface that is filled by rain water
from the spouting on the house roof. A
farmstead also has a well for drinking water but that water is often hard from
iron, sulfur or other elements in the ground.
The rain water is the source of soft water for bathing and washing
clothes on a farm of olden days. Having
cleaned out a cistern or two in my youth, the thought of human remains in there
is revolting. Second, I can totally
relate to Lucas aversion to bureaucracy and workplace politics. In my own professional life I often found
myself like Lucas focused on the task at hand rather than following established
protocol. Anyway, I loved this book and
will pick a few from Sanford’s Prey series to enjoy… suggestions are welcome.
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