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Mad River (Virgil Flowers #6)

4.07 of 5 stars 4.07 · rating details · 3,356 ratings · 529 reviews

Bonnie and Clyde, they thought. And what's-his-name, the sidekick. Three teenagers with dead-end lives, and chips on their shoulders, and guns.The first person they killed was a highway patrolman. The second was a woman during a robbery. Then, hell, why not keep on going? As their crime spree cuts a swath through rural Minnesota, some of it captured on the killers' cell ph...more

ebook, 400 pages

Published October 11th 2012 by Putnam Adult (first published January 1st 2012)

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Oct 11, 2012 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, crime-mystery, 5-0, thriller, rednecks, virgil-flowers

After all these John Sandford books I’m starting to wonder how there could possibly be anyone left alive in Minnesota.

Three young people try to pull a burglary that turns into murder and starts them on a killing spree through a rural area. State cop Virgil Flowers is in hot pursuit, but it’s impossible to predict where they’ll go next and many an innocent person winds up dead as the kids rampage across the countryside.

Sandford continues to add new layers to Virgil and differentiate him from the...more

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Dec 26, 2012 Cary Griffith rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ok, there should be categories of rating. Since four stars equates with "I really liked it" I guess that'll suffice. But rating a Sandford novel four stars, as opposed to, say, Fahrenheit 451, is like giving pumpkin pie the same rating as turkey with greens (or in my case, tofurkey with spinach). Sandford is pure joy, but he's dessert, he's what you reward yourself with after you've done something prudent, level headed and good for you.

If you like the thriller genre I highly recommend you drop y...more

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Oct 12, 2012 Zora rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Virgil Flowers books are lucidly written police procedurals with humor, attention to details of setting in rural Minnesota, and good quirky characters. They aren't "mysteries" in the sense that there is anything for us to figure out; the good guys' and bad guys' stories are both followed and there's not much for the reader to puzzle out. Crimes are solved through interviews and require legwork and streetsmarts rather than science and tech. The appeal to the reader is not "whodunit" but watch...more The Virgil Flowers books are lucidly written police procedurals with humor, attention to details of setting in rural Minnesota, and good quirky characters. They aren't "mysteries" in the sense that there is anything for us to figure out; the good guys' and bad guys' stories are both followed and there's not much for the reader to puzzle out. Crimes are solved through interviews and require legwork and streetsmarts rather than science and tech. The appeal to the reader is not "whodunit" but watching the protagonist close in on the criminals.

Virgil is a wonderful fictional invention, beginning with that amusing name. Virgil's first love is not detection but the outdoors, and his second job is writing articles for the slick hunting mags (and, increasingly, other national magazines). He is the son of a Lutheran minister who has stayed a deist on his own terms, despite the horrors he sees in his role as a cop, reflecting his basic kindness and optimism. He gets laid a lot and was married and divorced three times by his early thirties.

In this book we see him once again use a very strange group detection system, akin to the mail-survey on guilt he used in Shock Wave. As fans of the effin' Flowers know, he hates carrying a gun, and when something bad happens here, Lucas complains to him about that, and Flowers offers up an honest explanation why it wouldn't have helped him.

The climax of this novel comes a couple chapters before the ending. In Sandford's novels, sometimes justice doesn't prevail as the protagonist might wish, but the reader will be satisfied.

The writing, as always, is clean and crisp and invisible, in that best way, where words disappear and only story remains. Sandford is a reader-oriented writer, a man who knows how to manipulate us, entertain us, and keep us turning pages. I've always loved Sandford's female characters; for a man of his generation, he surprises with his skill of making them strong, sexual (NOT sexy, mere objects of some man's sexuality, but sexual, powerful subjects of their own).

One day I'm going for force myself not to read one of his novels in a single day, but I failed with this one; with prose this slick, it's impossible to put it down.(less)

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Oct 06, 2012 Sarescent rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-books

Another solid effort from John Sandford. Mad River's villains are a misfit Bonnie and Clyde pair on a killing spree through the Minnesota countryside. It starts with what seems like a pointless murder during a house robbery and soon, Jimmy and Becky (great names for this pair) are killing everyone in sight, looking for money, and day-dreaming about running off to Texas, Mexico, or Australia. Virgil Flowers (the greatest of great names) is chasing after them while dealing with a bloodthirsty loca...more

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Oct 08, 2012 Doris Luther rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Virgil Flowers has his own series now and they are great. I like him better than Davenport, but I still like him too. There are some nasty spree killers out there and Virgil is bound to get them. I should know tonight.

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Dec 24, 2012 Kevintipple rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Mad River: A Virgil Flowers Novel by John Sanford is the latest in an increasingly enjoyable series. When you see the subtitle A Virgil Flowers Novel you know exactly what you are getting in the read--- a profane loner type cop who will be unorthodox in solving the case while also making the time to check out the available ladies. The job will get done, political and probably law enforcement big shots will be annoyed, and the body count will be fairly high.

Continuing the tradition in recent book...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Mysterious Ed rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, law-enforcement

#6 in the Virgil Flowers series. Flowers is author Sandford's rural counterpart to his urban series featuring Lucas Davenport (who is Flowers' boss). The books are fast reading and highly entertaining. This entry also poses moral dilemmas concerning revenge and vigilantism. Too much on the topic would act as a spoiler, but the reader should be prepared to reflect after finishing the book on how the law and justice (definitely not the same thing) were served.

Virgil Flowers series - Three Minnesot...more

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Feb 20, 2013 Andreasoldier rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Can I just say I love Virgil Flowers. I just might want to be wife No. 4. I can ride horses while he fishes.
I started this book at 8:30 at night and couldn't put it down until I finished sometime around 1 in the morning.
This book starts out with a trio of teens — Jimmy, Becky and Tom McCall — with empty pockets looking to steal a diamond necklace from a house in rural Minnesota. The break-in is easy — the first window they try slides open like it was greased — but then a girl inside wakes up, an...more Can I just say I love Virgil Flowers. I just might want to be wife No. 4. I can ride horses while he fishes.
I started this book at 8:30 at night and couldn't put it down until I finished sometime around 1 in the morning.
This book starts out with a trio of teens — Jimmy, Becky and Tom McCall — with empty pockets looking to steal a diamond necklace from a house in rural Minnesota. The break-in is easy — the first window they try slides open like it was greased — but then a girl inside wakes up, and wakes her sister who stands up to the thieves. The trio decides to leave, but the one with the gun shoots the oldest sister. What follows is a trail of bad decisions by the kids on the run, one that leaves a body or bodies at every place they stop.
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension sends a maverick agent, one Virgil Flowers, to one of the early murder site. Virgil's a friendly guy, some might say a gossip, and by talking to everybody and anybody about what he knows and doesn't know, he soon ties it to the previous killing during the robbery.
Virgil is soon moving the investigation forward with some unorthodox measures. This is a guy described by his boss, Davenport, in another of Sanford's books as someone you send out for a loaf of bread, and he'll find out it was imported by a drug gang because it was baked with opium-infused wheat illegally imported from Afghanistan.
Virgil's smart, a smart ass, and he's cop, but he's uncomfortable with guns and violence. While he sees things in shades of gray, he's gonna err on the side of white hats — he's the son of preacher after all. This puts him at odds with other cops he works with, Davenport, and especially the local sheriff who just wants the kids taken care of -- anyway it can get done — and has marshalled the full force of his department as well as the National Guard behind him.
There are a lot of moral questions floating around in this book, concerning the teens, the murders, and actions taken by Virgil, the cops, one victim's family, a host of involved characters, but mostly importantly the nature of justice. Sanford handles all with a light touch and no preachiness, leaving it the reader to decide.
This series just keeps getting better, and I'm already salivating for the next one.
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Jan 27, 2013 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, mystery, thriller, minnesota

I liked this portrayal of desperate frustration among the police trying to catch a young couple on a killing spree. This police procedural is the 6th in a series featuring Detective Virgil Flowers of Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. He is easy to like for his down home charm and humor and for his pragmatic and persistent determination to find justice. I don’t rate it highly because I just wasn’t moved much emotionally by the tale, nor did I come away with much in the way of insight i...more I liked this portrayal of desperate frustration among the police trying to catch a young couple on a killing spree. This police procedural is the 6th in a series featuring Detective Virgil Flowers of Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. He is easy to like for his down home charm and humor and for his pragmatic and persistent determination to find justice. I don’t rate it highly because I just wasn’t moved much emotionally by the tale, nor did I come away with much in the way of insight into human nature.

It all starts with Jimmie and Becky, a pair of aimless youth down on their luck, along with a friend Tom along for the ride, seeking to rob a household of jewelry. A killing by Jimmie during execution of the crime puts them on the run, and attempts to garner cars and hideouts leads to more killings. As the body count rises, the massive manhunt by Virgil and local sheriff departments always seems to be one step behind. The rural Minnesota landscape is just too vast. As in the films “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Natural Born Killers” (which are explicitly referred to), Jimmie and Becky start getting used to killing as a matter of course. As hopeless as their situation is, they somehow imagine a romantic future where they can live the American Dream, kids and all. Virgil tries to make sense of it all:

What part could they have in God’s plan? Were they simply put here to kill people at random, because, for some people, people needed to be killed at random?

A mystery. He remembered a bumper sticker he’d seen in St. Paul that said: “Remember: Half the People Are Below Average.” That, he thought, was probably the key to Jimmie Sharp and Becky Welsh.
They were below average, and God had made them that way. There was no way that they were ever going to be anything but that; they could watch all the above-average people they wanted, on television, driving around in big cars and making enormous amounts of money out of nothing … or just working at the post office, or going to trade school to be plumbers or carpenters. They’d never be able to do that. They were condemned from birth to a life of hard times and trouble.

This is it for “depth” of insight. As in the Springstein’s song about the spree killer Starkweather, we are left with a message “They wanted to know why I did what I did. Well sir, I guess there's just a meanness in this world.”

Fortunately, Sanford brings in a secondary plot of another person involved in the first murder, someone who put Jimmie onto the household picked ostensibly for robbery. Through much of the book, Flowers is frustrated in his efforts to resolve his case on that, despite tantalizing progress in his mounting pieces of evidence against the likely culprit.
(less)

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Dec 29, 2012 David Peters rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It may just be me, but it seems as if John Sandford has got a little more violent with his last few books. Davenport, in the last Prey book dealt with Mexican gangs who viciously deal with their problems without blinking an eye. The sad part of that book, with its various torture murders of families, is its basis in reality. But Davenport has always leaned a little violent, enough so I would be fearful of going to Minnesota if I already didn’t live here.

A few years ago Sandford started writing V...more

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Dec 22, 2012 Cardmaker rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is nothing bad I can say about this book. It was an interesting storyline that gripped me in the first few pages and never loosened one bit until the end. Not many books hold my interest the way this one did.

The writing is first rate and the main characters were well fleshed out. I liked the way the author took us on both journeys - the killers as well as the police looking for them. He alternated between the two stories.

I only found one mistake in editing which isn't bad. I don't like fi...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Ellen Keim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first Virgil Flowers book for me. I'll definitely be reading the others. It was nice to get away from Lucas Davenport for a while (although he does make brief appearances in this one). I like the main character, and his back story--he might be a good ole boy on the surface, what with his cowboy boots and small town background, but he's smart and he's dedicated and not afraid to call them like he sees them.

That last quality is especially pertinent in this book in which a whole county...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Reginald Burnette rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Three crazed teenaged killers are on a murder spree that leaves the citizens of Southwestern Minnesota bewildered and outraged.

The murders begin at what appears to be a botched home invasion. Later, the killings appear to take on more personal motivations. The group leader, Jimmy Sharp (who seems to enjoy killing), shoots his own father in the head when the old man refuses to give the gang shelter.

Later, Jimmy kills his girlfriend (and fellow gang member) Rebecca (Becky) Welsh’s parents for th...more Three crazed teenaged killers are on a murder spree that leaves the citizens of Southwestern Minnesota bewildered and outraged.

The murders begin at what appears to be a botched home invasion. Later, the killings appear to take on more personal motivations. The group leader, Jimmy Sharp (who seems to enjoy killing), shoots his own father in the head when the old man refuses to give the gang shelter.

Later, Jimmy kills his girlfriend (and fellow gang member) Rebecca (Becky) Welsh’s parents for the same reason. Becky, who hates her parents, feels no remorse after witnessing their deaths. She is an angry, disillusioned young woman who blames her parents for not supporting her life dreams.

The death count continues to raise, even after the gang is betrayed by their partner, Tom McCall. McCall is a whinny, complaining, liar with a hidden sexual agenda towards Becky.

The hunt for these cold blooded murderers is led by field investigator Virgil Flowers, of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Virgil finds himself partnered with Lewis Duke, Sheriff of Bare County. These two men couldn’t be more different. Flowers tends to be idealistic and follow the rules. Duke is conservative and will bend those rules to run his county as he sees fit.

This book takes off quickly, with the first murders occurring within the first few pages. There is non-stop action from beginning to end.

What leaped out at me were the disillusionment, frustration, and pure rage that characterize the killers. To be so young, and yet feel that there is no hope for a decent life is tragic. To take your frustrations out on innocent people in such an inhuman fashion is repugnant.

I’ve read better from John Sandford. To my mind, the “Prey Series” is more engrossing.

But don’t get me wrong. “Mad River” is a good book. And, I do find Virgil Flowers to be a very likeable character. He’s the kind of guy you wouldn’t mind meeting in a bar and having a few with.
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Nov 16, 2012 Amorak Huey rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: thriller

One of the things I tell students all the time is that for a story to work, the main character needs to be dynamic -- as in, capable of change. There has to be something at stake in the narrative for that main character. Not only something at stake in the events of the plot, but something deeper: something having to do, usually, with fundamental questions of self and identity. The character must change or lose out on a chance to do so; that's where the climax comes from.

Well, one of the things a...more One of the things I tell students all the time is that for a story to work, the main character needs to be dynamic -- as in, capable of change. There has to be something at stake in the narrative for that main character. Not only something at stake in the events of the plot, but something deeper: something having to do, usually, with fundamental questions of self and identity. The character must change or lose out on a chance to do so; that's where the climax comes from.

Well, one of the things about the genre of the Highly Selling Thriller Series is that the character had to also sort of remain constant. We like Dave Robicheaux or Jack Reacher or Lucas Davenport, and that's why we plunk down our $27.95 or whatever when the next installment arrives -- we want to recognize Our Hero. So it's kind of a bind for the thriller writer who aspires to Highly Selling status: create a dynamic character who never, like, actually changes.

The best examples of the genre get around this by putting their beloved characters in all manner of mortal danger (and when that fails, putting their loved ones in danger), by monkeying around with their characters' love lives, and so on. For Sandford, this works pretty well in the Prey series, but I would suggest it's working less well in the Virgil Flowers series to which Mad River belongs.

Look, I love Sandford. His clean, appealing prose; his crisp pacing; his smart plots -- these all draw me to his work. And I like this book, too. Virgil's a fun character, a state cop who's all irreverent and horndoggy and laid-back and impossibly brilliant. But in this book more than any other, he felt pretty one-note. The opposite of dynamic, basically.

There wasn't much at stake, either. It's the usual deal where Flowers arrives in a small town caught up in a murder investigation, and as usual the local cops are all golly, gee, Virgil, we're sure glad you're here because we have one murder every 10 years. So here, a trio of killers kill a few people, and they'll probably kill a few more before Flowers catches up to them, but it all feels ... well, kinda small time. And familiar, if you've read the previous Flowers books. There's the mildest of twists toward the end, but it's pretty easy to predict, if you're paying attention early on.

Oh, well. As I said, I still liked it. Just didn't love it. Certainly not near the top of the Sandford pantheon. (less)

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Nov 15, 2012 Nikki-ann rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: received-for-review

Despite Mad River being the sixth book in the Virgil Flowers series and the umpteenth book that John Sandford has written, this is the first John Sandford book that I’ve read. To begin with, I wasn’t quite sure if I was enjoying the book, but then, just a few chapters in, something grabbed me and pulled me in. I read most of the book in one day and only put it down just a handful of pages before the end because I desperately needed some shut-eye.

At first, I did wonder if the death toll was plaus...more Despite Mad River being the sixth book in the Virgil Flowers series and the umpteenth book that John Sandford has written, this is the first John Sandford book that I’ve read. To begin with, I wasn’t quite sure if I was enjoying the book, but then, just a few chapters in, something grabbed me and pulled me in. I read most of the book in one day and only put it down just a handful of pages before the end because I desperately needed some shut-eye.

At first, I did wonder if the death toll was plausible, but looking at it in more detail I realised that it is. Once the first victim is killed, the teens make one bad decision after another and it all spirals out of control, leading to them running for their own lives. It’s also about understanding what makes people tick.

I got a good feel for all of the main characters in Mad River, even the teens with blood on their hands had personalities (even if they weren’t such nice ones!). Despite this being the 6th book in the series, Mad River can easily be read as a stand-alone novel and I felt I’d come to know the protagonist quite well. Virgil Flowers is an upstanding man with principles that he sticks to, he can take a bit of a laugh, but he’s unrelenting in his investigation. He doesn’t take any crap!

A character called Lucas Davenport appears on the fringes of his story as a supporting character to Virgil Flowers. Even to a first time Sandford reader, it was obvious that there was some kind of history between the two characters, despite Davenport’s brief appearances. Seasoned readers of the author will already know Davenport, because he has his own series.

Praise on the back of the book includes this from Stephen King:

‘If you haven’t read Sandford, you have been missing on of the great summer-read novelists of all time’.

And he’s quite possibly right! I thoroughly enjoyed Mad River and will certainly be checking out his other Virgil Flowers books, if not the rest too (though that may take some time given the number of them published!).

Mad River is a gritty, thought-provoking, American crime thriller which examines rights and wrongs and justice. I’m glad to have not missed out on this excellent read and look forward to reading more from John Sandford.(less)

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Nov 13, 2012 Mal Warwick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

John Sandford's latest: Murder on the run in rural Minnesota

Virgil Flowers is not my kind of guy.

For starters, Virgil is a “pistol-packing, shit-kicking” type who drives a pickup and loves fishing, hunting, and arguing in bars about the best country singer of all time. The son of a conservative Lutheran pastor in rural Minnesota who still goes to church with his parents from time to time, he’s been divorced three times. He is also about six-one, blond, and thin, so if you know me you know I hate...more John Sandford's latest: Murder on the run in rural Minnesota

Virgil Flowers is not my kind of guy.

For starters, Virgil is a “pistol-packing, shit-kicking” type who drives a pickup and loves fishing, hunting, and arguing in bars about the best country singer of all time. The son of a conservative Lutheran pastor in rural Minnesota who still goes to church with his parents from time to time, he’s been divorced three times. He is also about six-one, blond, and thin, so if you know me you know I hate him. On the other hand, he’s an accomplished nonfiction writer who has been published in The New York Times Magazine and is now about to sign a contract for a major piece with Vanity Fair.

Oh, and by the way, Virgil is also an agent for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) who has piled up so impressive a record on high-profile cases that he has the governor on speed-dial – and he is the protagonist of a series of crime novels set in the upper Midwest by the pseudonymous John Sandford, who was an award-winning journalist in another life and under a different name.

In Mad River, Virgil has no sooner returned from a vacation in, of all places, the Bahamas when his boss, Lucas Davenport, assigns him to follow up on a brutal and seemingly senseless murder in a small rural town near Virgil’s home base in Mankato. One murder has turned into two by the time Virgil arrives in Bigham, the site of the first murder, and two more are discovered before Virgil and the disreputable local Sheriff can puzzle out what happened the first time around. Soon enough, however, it becomes clear that a couple of local young people, or maybe three of them, have gone on a killing spree. Mad River tells the unfolding tale of Virgil’s, and the Sheriff’s, rush to get to the killers first—Virgil, to take them in for prosecution, the Sheriff, to kill them on the spot.

This latest best-selling work from John Sandford – number six in the Virgil Flowers series – bears all the characteristics of the author’s trademark mastery of suspense. The story unfolds unpredictably, and, for a change, even ends in surprise. Nonetheless, I think Sandford (or his editor) may have been asleep at the wheel on this one. With only a few exceptions, every character in this novel, major or minor, is described as “thin” – not “skinny,” “slender,” “rail-thin,” “emaciated,” “skeletal,” “reedy,” or “light-weight,” but simply “thin.” To my mind, this seems an abuse of the writer’s spare, colloquial style, and as an editor by nature I find it offensive. Anyway, do Minnesotans really eat that little?

All told, Sandford has written 34 novels, including 22 in his “Prey” series, in which Lucas Davenport of the BCA is the central character and Virgil Flowers is usually in the supporting cast. (less)

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Oct 23, 2012 Seeley James rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There are only three authors whose books I will preorder, no matter what they write.* John Sandford, Lee Child, and Zoë Sharp. All three for the same reasons: I learn a great deal about writing from them; they each have a unique talent; they never disappoint; and, despite being deep into their respective franchise formulas, every book they write is fresh.

John Sandford’s unique talent lies in constructing the villains. His bad guys are perfect descriptions of the lowlifes who turn to crime to sol...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Sharon Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a bit different than Sandford's usual form, less action, less active detective work, more politics and a rather ambiguous and different ending, though it worked for me in context.

Though the storyline was slower than many of Sandford's books, it was definitely an entertaining read for me. Having worked as a dispatcher and been married to a small town LEO myself, I found the look into small town law enforcement and in particular. searches for suspects, interesting and in this case, very ac...more

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Oct 16, 2012 C.A. Newsome rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When a modern Bonnie and Clyde start a rampage in rural Minnesota, only Virgil Flowers can stop the mayhem. Once again, John Sanford proves that the only thing more entertaining than watching the pursuit of a criminal mastermind is witnessing the unraveling of terminally stupid felons.

If you are not familiar with Virgil Flowers, he is the horn-dog investigator who gets results by doing everything a detective is not supposed to do. He is the antithesis of Lucas Davenport, Sanford's most prolific...more

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Oct 12, 2012 Dotti Elrick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The more I read about Virgil the more I love him. In Mad River we meet his parents. Virgil is a lot like his dad. It was a nice glimpse of normal family life.
We meet our three bad guys (or two guys and a girl) on the first page. On the way to rob a family. The robbery goes bad, and they end up killing a woman. As they are making their escape, they kill a man for his car.
Jimmy, Becky and Tom are three kids from small town America. Who grew up poor with no hope of improving their lives. They trie...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Jo Massino rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle

I do love "that f***in' Flowers"!

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Mar 17, 2013 Linda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: thriller, audio

Virgil Flowers is sent to the scene of a double murder. It soon turns out that there are a lot more murders and that there are three young folks from the town that having started killing seem unable to stop. The spree started as the result of what later appears to have been a "hit." Virgil has his usual "hook-up" during the investigation, although it takes up less space and time than usual. In this story we learn a bit more about Virgil's parents -- he visits them. His dad is a minister. In ever...more

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Oct 15, 2012 Albert Riehle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

John Sandford is so consistent it's just not fair to the other writers in his genre. You'd think by now he'd have phoned one in or written a clunker, but he hasn't. He's the good book factory. It's as simple as that.

The only reason Virgil Flowers isn't my favorite thriller/mystery/cop character is that Lucas Davenport beat him to the top spot and hasn't done anything to relinquish it. It would have been easy for Sandford to make Flowers a young version of Davenport, hell, I doubt any of his read...more John Sandford is so consistent it's just not fair to the other writers in his genre. You'd think by now he'd have phoned one in or written a clunker, but he hasn't. He's the good book factory. It's as simple as that.

The only reason Virgil Flowers isn't my favorite thriller/mystery/cop character is that Lucas Davenport beat him to the top spot and hasn't done anything to relinquish it. It would have been easy for Sandford to make Flowers a young version of Davenport, hell, I doubt any of his readers would have even minded if he had, but once again in Mad River, Sandford continues to evolve the Virgil Flowers character in a similar, yet divergent path from Davenport and it just makes these "Fucking Flowers" books that much more enjoyable. And you know this little fling with Flowers is serious now, we get to meet his parents.

The action is solid, the pace--like with all of Sandford's books--is superb and the continued development of Flowers as a character is excellent and is illustrated perfectly toward the end of the book when Flowers does some very un-Davenport-like things, against the advice of Davenport himself. And as long as I'm on the subject, I love the interaction between the two. Davenport is only a minor character in this series, but he's an important one, drawing the many contrasts between himself and Flowers. And I particularly like the way, as different as they are and think, that they get along so well and have each other's backs. There are some really subtle things in these interactions that I really enjoyed, it makes it easy to be a fan of both series.

I also find myself looking forward to the inevitable appearance of thug-life version of R2-D2 & C-3PO that are Jenkins & Shrake. Always good for some dry humor and another way to contrast Flowers unique style, the two characters are a welcome recurring part of these books.

My only complaint is that I can't spend more than a day or two reading Sandford's books. I devour them. When I'm reading one, everything else on my to-do list gets reassigned and procrastinated.

If you're a fan of this series, this book will not disappoint. If you've never read one, it's time to jump in, and while this book is a perfectly acceptable place to jump in--the series is new enough that you should definitely go back and start from the beginning. You can't go wrong reading them all. (less)

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Oct 11, 2012 Monnie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If I don't count Harry Potter - who's in a league all by himself - my favorite fictional character has to be Virgil Flowers, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent in Minnesota. He's got it all: Good looks, quick wit and an uncanny ability to solve complex murder cases.

In Mad River, the most recent addition to author John Sanford's series, I was reminded of the reasons I love Flowers (and the books) by the time I hit the second chapter. The streets to the south of Main Street in the small town to...more

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Feb 01, 2013 Jeffrey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, read-in-2013

Mad River is a runaway freight train of a read. Three spree killers are on the loose and cutting down anyone in their way. It all starts when Jimmy Sharp, Becky Welsh and Tom McCall enter the O'Leary house -- to steal some diamond earings but the robbery goes sideways and Jimmy Sharp kills Agatha O'Leary. But is it really a robbery?

Jimmy Sharp is a bully from way back, Becky Welsh is a beauty and Tom McCall is a reject from the Navy with a skin condition. Becky goes into the O'Leary house to ste...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Gloria Feit rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The chase is on. Non-stop.

Virgil Flowers, the top investigator for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, takes on another weird case when a murder is discovered, followed by a trail of several more. It quickly is determined that three young people are on a murder spree, and just about everyone in law enforcement, with reinforcements from the National Guard, is deployed to find them before another person is killed.

The plot involves locating the perpetrators with sub-plots occupying some...more

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Nov 18, 2012 Nancy Goldberg Wilks rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is very disappointing! After losing faith in Sandford (after he forgot one of his character's history, in an earlier book), I gave up on him - except for Virgil Flowers. I have always thought that Virgil is an interesting, well-developed character; so, I was looking forward to reading Mad River. Upon completing the book, however, I find that I have nothing positive to say about it, except that it is a Virgil Flowers book (and not even a good one of those).

In my opinion, the writing in...more

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Oct 30, 2012 Anita rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, police-procedural, suspense-thriller, favorites

Well, it's not really a mystery, because we see the story from the points of view of both the kids committing the crimes and Virgil Flowers, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension "dude" who chases after them. I labelled it a mystery because Virgil reasons his way through the book, figuring out what happened, where the criminals are, and even using prison inmates in a focal group to sort things out. The author explains everything away except in the last few pages, which he leaves the reader to figu...more

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Oct 14, 2012 Mike Tueros rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The latest in the Virgil Flowers series from John Sandford - and although I enjoyed it (would have given it 3 1/2 stars if I could), this one seemed phoned in, with less plot detail, a cast of culprits easily discovered and far fewer of the clever one liners typically enjoyed in this series. In Mad River, Flowers gets called in to investigate the murder of Ag Murphy, the victim of a botched burglary attempt. Three vagabond twenty-somethings start a killing spree with her murder, which ultimately...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Jerry rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lucas Davenport (of Sandford’s long-running “Prey” series) is getting a little “long in the tooth” for running around chasing bad guys – he’s now mostly an executive, and a helper for Virgil Flowers, a rural Minnesotan who is the leading man in “Mad River”, the sixth novel to feature this “country boy”-style investigator. A God-fearing son of a preacher, Virgil doesn’t often carry a gun or believe in much violence, but he’s smart and resourceful in catching crooks. In this novel, there’s no myst...more

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About John Sandford

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 th...more

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Quotes from Mad River

“I once defenestrated a guy. The cops got all pissed off at me. I was drunk, but they said that was no excuse."

"Ah well," Virgil said. Then, "The guy hurt bad?"

"Cracked his hip. Landed on a Prius. Really fucked up the Prius, too."

"I can tell you, just now is the only time in my life I ever heard 'defenestration' used in a sentence," Virgil said.

"It's a word you learn after you done it," Morton said. "Yup. The New Prague AmericInn, 2009."

Virgil was amazed. "Really? The defenstration of New Prague?” — 4 people liked it

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Mad River (Virgil Flowers #6)

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