Naked Prey by John Sandford



Naked Prey is the most recent Lucas Davenport novel by John Sandford. It's a minor entry in the series about the Minneapolis homicide detective, but still well written. Davenport has now been bumped up to a nebulous problem solving position in the state police, and has to travel to the most rural part of Minnesota to investigate the hanged bodies of two people, a black man and a white woman. Of course, this is a politically touchy situation, though the murders turn out have nothing to do with race and everything to do with the fact that the small town where the two were murdered is host to an incredible number of criminal conspiracies. I guess this is supposed to be Sandford's homage to Fargo (1996), with a similar killing spree at the end. It was entertaining, but while the person who committed the initial two murders has obvious motive to kill those people, he has absolutely no reason to do something so provocative as hang them. He's also disposed of before any light is shed on this issue, so the book feels unbalanced. This book also introduces an important new character who will probably be featured prominently in the next book.

Posted: Wed - October 8, 2003 at      

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