Outstanding! After a bunch of lackluster efforts, John Sandford is back in top form with a new heroine, the adopted daughter of Lucas Davenport, working for a Senator and then Homeland Security to solve a case of oil theft that turns into something much, much bigger and more threatening to the USA. Extremely credible and well written, with a lot of snappy dialogue and smart plotting.
It was another John Sandford novel, and that's fine. Lots of action and quite a few bodies hitting the ground. Sandford has made a young female version of Lucas Davenport - purposefully, of course, because it's mentioned several times how she is just like him despite not being blood related. I liked the plot, with stolen oil funding an anti-immigrant militia, and I liked Letty's partnership with Kaiser. The POV shifts between Letty and the militia leader Jael, not sure I believed in Jael, but no matter. I could have wished for Letty, who's only 24, to be a little less hyper-competent. Standford grad, clothes horse, out-shoots a Delta-force military guy, everyone's terrified of her etc. There's a couple times where she grudgingly admits she has something to learn from her partner but she never puts a foot wrong or even guesses incorrectly. The action flows well and there's a good sense of place. Since I was listening to the audiobook, I couldn't slide over all the gun details, so many details... Again, no surprises, but to me that's tedious. But overall I enjoyed it, it's predictable mind-candy and was an excellent accompaniment to my craft project.
I love the Lucas Davenport books and had high hopes for this one, but it really did take me awhile to get into it. However as the book got down to the last four or five chapters, things really picked up for it made up for the rest of the book. I have the next book in the series so definitely given it another shot to impress me.
If you've read the Prey Series, I would there's no reason not to take a look at this one.
If you've read the Prey Series, I would there's no reason not to take a look at this one.
