By John Sandford
Full Text :COPYRIGHT 2008 American Library Association
Frances Austin is a missing heiress. Traces of blood in her well-connected mother Alyssa’s home lead Lucas Davenport, head of Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, to assume the worst, but without a body, he can’t be sure. The investigation centers on Frances’ involvement in the Twin Cities’ goth community. The goths’ collective obsession with death and darkness makes them an obvious starting point, but Davenport believes it’s a form of youthful angst rather than an inherently evil social trend. But when other young goths connected to Frances are murdered, Davenport is forced to rethink his theory. Like all good investigators, he follows the money, in this case, a $50,000 withdrawal from Frances’ account and its subsequent disbursement over a 20-day period preceding Frances’ disappearance. When Davenport is wounded coming out of a goth club after conducting a series of background interviews, he realizes he’s closing in on the killer but has no idea who or why. The eighteenth entry in the best-selling Prey series is Sandford’s usual mix of clever plotting, gallows humor, and explosive action, but this time he mixes in a bit of the seemingly supernatural. Davenport doesn’t realize it-and neither will readers–but he’s actually working on two cases. The solution to one is mundanely tragic; the second genuinely disturbing. Expect another trip to the best-seller lists for one of the most consistently entertaining crime writers working today.–Wes LukowskY
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