David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "police-procedure-u-s-marshalls"
Twisted Prey
TWISTED PREY is a continuation of Lucas Davenport's new role as Federal Marshal. In this one, he confronts an old enemy, Senator Taryn Grant.
Somebody tries to kill Senator Porter Smalls, junior senator from Minnesota, by running him off the road. Whoever did it did manages to kill Smalls's mistress in the process.
Lucas calls Bob and Rae, fellow U.S. Marshalls who are enamored of flying business class as a result of working with Lucas. Smalls insists he was run off the road, but when a camera points to a Ford-250 as the guilty vehicle and they track down the owner, there's very little evidence that the truck was involved.
Lucas and Smalls are pretty sure Grant is behind the attack since she's done this sort of thing before, and Smalls has been giving her a hard time in the Senate. Grant also has connections to Heracles, a mercenary military outfit. Heracles hires retired special forces types to do Grant's dirty work and Lucas tracks one of them down. Then Weather is T-boned and almost killed; it looks like a drunken driver until Lucas's aides prove he couldn't have done it.
When Weather is attacked and we know he knows who did it, the reader is amazed at how cool Lucas is. Instead of ripping his guts out, Lucas is after higher prey, and he's pretty sure the guy who owns the Ford-250 can lead him to them. But you need some suspension of disbelief. One big criticism of the PREY novels is that Lucas is involved in so much blood shed, and he still has a job in law enforcement. He's got more of a hair trigger than this.
I really liked the way Sandford handled the ending. A woman tries to take Sanford out with a machine gone in his own apartment, but he'd moved across the hall. The woman happens to be the girlfriend of one of the special forces types who was killed, and the higher ups at Heracles are saying Lucas water-boarded him before he killed him. Once again, instead of throwing her off a bridge, Lucas straightens her out and fills her in on what really happened. They're almost friends. Again, hard to believe, but Sanford needs this to happen to make the ending work.
Sandford doesn't do the little things as well as he used to when the series was set in Minnesota. It's hard to do that when he's working all over the country. I'm also from Minnesota, so I liked those little elements of setting that I recognized, like the amazing Summit Avenue where Lucas still lives when he's not chasing all over the country. About all we get here is the Watergate complex where Lucas is staying while in Washington. Sanford now lives in New Mexico, Tony Hillerman country, so it's hard to make New Mexico the new Minnesota.
Somebody tries to kill Senator Porter Smalls, junior senator from Minnesota, by running him off the road. Whoever did it did manages to kill Smalls's mistress in the process.
Lucas calls Bob and Rae, fellow U.S. Marshalls who are enamored of flying business class as a result of working with Lucas. Smalls insists he was run off the road, but when a camera points to a Ford-250 as the guilty vehicle and they track down the owner, there's very little evidence that the truck was involved.
Lucas and Smalls are pretty sure Grant is behind the attack since she's done this sort of thing before, and Smalls has been giving her a hard time in the Senate. Grant also has connections to Heracles, a mercenary military outfit. Heracles hires retired special forces types to do Grant's dirty work and Lucas tracks one of them down. Then Weather is T-boned and almost killed; it looks like a drunken driver until Lucas's aides prove he couldn't have done it.
When Weather is attacked and we know he knows who did it, the reader is amazed at how cool Lucas is. Instead of ripping his guts out, Lucas is after higher prey, and he's pretty sure the guy who owns the Ford-250 can lead him to them. But you need some suspension of disbelief. One big criticism of the PREY novels is that Lucas is involved in so much blood shed, and he still has a job in law enforcement. He's got more of a hair trigger than this.
I really liked the way Sandford handled the ending. A woman tries to take Sanford out with a machine gone in his own apartment, but he'd moved across the hall. The woman happens to be the girlfriend of one of the special forces types who was killed, and the higher ups at Heracles are saying Lucas water-boarded him before he killed him. Once again, instead of throwing her off a bridge, Lucas straightens her out and fills her in on what really happened. They're almost friends. Again, hard to believe, but Sanford needs this to happen to make the ending work.
Sandford doesn't do the little things as well as he used to when the series was set in Minnesota. It's hard to do that when he's working all over the country. I'm also from Minnesota, so I liked those little elements of setting that I recognized, like the amazing Summit Avenue where Lucas still lives when he's not chasing all over the country. About all we get here is the Watergate complex where Lucas is staying while in Washington. Sanford now lives in New Mexico, Tony Hillerman country, so it's hard to make New Mexico the new Minnesota.
