John Sandford has been at the crime thriller game for over two decades now, and it is easy to dismiss that achievement as simply scaling the mountain of pulpy fiction success. But every May I buy his new book because I read the series in tandem with my mother, and then am lost for several days in the rush of his talent. Because what he does is not easy. And when I say several days, it's because he delivers that page-turning pump of power time after time after time. His latest is a perfect example of edge-of-your-seat suspense, a white-knuckle ride that starts on page one, in paragraph one, in sentence one and does not let up for anything for 408 pages. That requires craft and skill, and if it's not a genre I spend most of my time in, at least in the hands of Sandford, I'm more than happy to give it an annual visit.