David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "red-wing"
Field of Prey
John Sanford’s PREY novels are different from other mystery thriller/suspense vehicles in that we usually know who the culprits are from the beginning. This one starts with an abduction of a woman who gets away.
Heather Jorgenson is kidnapped by two dirtballs, one of whom throws her in the back seat of his pickup. She’s tied up in a mail sack, but she’s got a knife, and she works herself free, reaches up and stabs a man named Horn in the neck several times. She doesn’t know he has a partner, but she gets away by running through a cornfield, then finds a place to call the cops.
This begins one of the subplots. What the heck is going on with Horn, who should, by all rights, be dead? We’re shortly introduced to a football player and his girlfriend who discover the dumping ground for over twenty victims. It’s an old cistern, referred to from then on as The Black Hole.
People from Minnesota will recognize the place names: Zumbrota, Red Wing, and Holbein, two small towns and a small city near the Wisconsin border. Red Wing is infamous as home to a reform school. As young people there weren’t many boys who weren’t threatened with being sent to Red Wing if they misbehaved. When Lucas Davenport is called to the scene he must contend with the Wisconsin state police who lay claim to some of the bodies, and a Goodhue County detective named Caitrin Mattson who has a very big chip on her shoulder. Also, for some reason Lucas takes his adopted daughter, Lettie, along. She’s been showing more than a little interest in her dad’s profession, and she’s already good at it. Weather, Lucas’s wife, puts a stop to that when she asks to go again later on.
Del, Lucas’s number one partner, is involved in a gun running/drug case involving some senior citizens and Virgil Flowers is on vacation, then must deal with another case in Iowa. There’s some funny interplay between that “effing” Flowers and Davenport when he learns Virgil knows Caitrin. She’s a very good looking woman. Former lech Davenport is tempted, but he’s happily married to Weather.
It’s not long before, the second string killer, R.A., targets Caitrin as his next victim, and that’s where most of the suspense lies. R.A. looks like a lump of clay, but like the senior citizens, he’s more imposing than he looks. He also seems to be getting help from Horn, who should be dead.
Davenport does not have the lead in this case. That job went to the more careful Bob Shaffer, who keep a murder book that he carries with him every place he goes; he also has a smaller notebook. Both will become instrumental later on in the story.
This is one of the better PREY novles, but Lucas drops the ball upon occasion. A little girl identifies a man who may be one of the killers as her mailman. He was sorting mail at the time, so it couldn’t be him. It takes forever and a day for Lucas to show the picture to the locals. Lucas also keeps a file of dirtballs who might know the kind of psycho who would do this sort of thing. He actually has the name of the killer before he’s distracted by Del’s case in Texas and doesn’t follow through. Doesn’t sound like Lucas Davenport.
The climax scene is riveting; usually I’m not to worried when it’s Lucas who’s in a fight for his life, because Sandford isn’t going to sacrifice his bread and brother for a twist, but in this one it’s somebody else who has us really worried.
Long time fans of the PREY series will welcome the return of Elle, Lucas’s childhood friend, now a nun and a psychologist. She helps Heather Jorgenson remember more of what happened the night she was kidnapped.
Heather Jorgenson is kidnapped by two dirtballs, one of whom throws her in the back seat of his pickup. She’s tied up in a mail sack, but she’s got a knife, and she works herself free, reaches up and stabs a man named Horn in the neck several times. She doesn’t know he has a partner, but she gets away by running through a cornfield, then finds a place to call the cops.
This begins one of the subplots. What the heck is going on with Horn, who should, by all rights, be dead? We’re shortly introduced to a football player and his girlfriend who discover the dumping ground for over twenty victims. It’s an old cistern, referred to from then on as The Black Hole.
People from Minnesota will recognize the place names: Zumbrota, Red Wing, and Holbein, two small towns and a small city near the Wisconsin border. Red Wing is infamous as home to a reform school. As young people there weren’t many boys who weren’t threatened with being sent to Red Wing if they misbehaved. When Lucas Davenport is called to the scene he must contend with the Wisconsin state police who lay claim to some of the bodies, and a Goodhue County detective named Caitrin Mattson who has a very big chip on her shoulder. Also, for some reason Lucas takes his adopted daughter, Lettie, along. She’s been showing more than a little interest in her dad’s profession, and she’s already good at it. Weather, Lucas’s wife, puts a stop to that when she asks to go again later on.
Del, Lucas’s number one partner, is involved in a gun running/drug case involving some senior citizens and Virgil Flowers is on vacation, then must deal with another case in Iowa. There’s some funny interplay between that “effing” Flowers and Davenport when he learns Virgil knows Caitrin. She’s a very good looking woman. Former lech Davenport is tempted, but he’s happily married to Weather.
It’s not long before, the second string killer, R.A., targets Caitrin as his next victim, and that’s where most of the suspense lies. R.A. looks like a lump of clay, but like the senior citizens, he’s more imposing than he looks. He also seems to be getting help from Horn, who should be dead.
Davenport does not have the lead in this case. That job went to the more careful Bob Shaffer, who keep a murder book that he carries with him every place he goes; he also has a smaller notebook. Both will become instrumental later on in the story.
This is one of the better PREY novles, but Lucas drops the ball upon occasion. A little girl identifies a man who may be one of the killers as her mailman. He was sorting mail at the time, so it couldn’t be him. It takes forever and a day for Lucas to show the picture to the locals. Lucas also keeps a file of dirtballs who might know the kind of psycho who would do this sort of thing. He actually has the name of the killer before he’s distracted by Del’s case in Texas and doesn’t follow through. Doesn’t sound like Lucas Davenport.
The climax scene is riveting; usually I’m not to worried when it’s Lucas who’s in a fight for his life, because Sandford isn’t going to sacrifice his bread and brother for a twist, but in this one it’s somebody else who has us really worried.
Long time fans of the PREY series will welcome the return of Elle, Lucas’s childhood friend, now a nun and a psychologist. She helps Heather Jorgenson remember more of what happened the night she was kidnapped.
