Silken Prey is the 23rd in the John Sandford‘s Lucas Davenport series, and I think the series might be getting a bit worn. Fans are sure to disagree, but this particular outing is low on suspense and high on watching the plot unfold. Political dirty tricks are even dirtier than usual when rich, beautiful, and sociopathic Taryn Grant runs for the Senate. Incumbent Porter Smalls looks like he’s going to win the race, but Grant’s team frames him by placing child pornography on his computer. The next thing you know, his lead disappears, Grant’s speeding to the Senate, and there’s a string of dead bodies. Davenport ‘s working for the governor to get to the truth, but he always seems to be a step or two behind.
Compadres Virgil Flowers and Joe Kidd give a hand, and there’s a brief side plot featuring Kidd’s wife Lauren, but all in all, things don’t work out particularly well for anyone besides former Secret Service agent Alice Green, who’ll make the leap to Governor Henderson’s staff, and for Taryn Grant herself who gets to keep her ill-gotten Senate seat and will probably show up as an evildoer in a future Sandford book.
Silken Prey is not one of Sandford’s most compelling novels. It’s clear from early on who the bad guys are, nobody you care about is in any particular danger, and it’s a foregone conclusion that all of Grant’s accomplices are going to end up dead, not just because she’s a smart, scheming, conniving sociopath, but because the whole book will fall apart if any of them are left alive. Still, the story’s okay, the familiar banter among is as comfortable as old jeans, and it’s a fun way to spend an early summer afternoon on the porch. Wine and cheese optional, but heartily recommended.
More fun with that f*in’ Flowers
John Sandford
So, everybody knows John Sandford, right? Tall, rugged-looking guy, Pultizer-prize winning journalist, modest demeanor, writes about fourteen books a year, all of which end up on the New York Times best seller list? (Okay, it’s his real-life persona, John Roswell Camp, who won the Pulitzer and he doesn’t actually publish fourteen books a year – it’s just 31 novels since 1989.) He’s got a new one out, and it features Virgil Flowers. If Lucas Davenport is the urbane, big-money family man, Virgil’s his rough-edged, woman-loving cousin.
Matthew McConaughey
In this post, I likened Virgil to Jimmy Buffet. I also think Matthew McConaughey could take the movie role, slipping easily into Flowers’ classic rock-n-roll T-shirts. (Click here for a list of said t-shirts.)
Now there’s a new Virgil Flowers novel out, just as rollicking and convoluted as ever.
Storm Front features a dying college professor who steals a priceless – and potentially world-changing – ancient biblical artifact from a dig in Israel. Professor Elijah Jones sets course immediately for Mankato, Minnesota, home territory for our own Virgil Flowers. Virgil’s busy. He’s got buxom criminals to investigate. Closely.
Jones’ goal is to ransom the artifact to the highest bidder, thereby securing the future of his Alzheimer’s-stricken wife, who is going to need a lot of very expensive care after her husband’s death. Of course, this being a Virgil Flowers novel, there’s a whole cast of unusual characters, including a faux-historian from the Israel Department of Antiquities (Yael Aronov One) who’s so fit and kick-ass that we’re not surprised too much when we find out she’s really probably from Mossad, the real Yael (known as Yael-Two, and much dumpier and home-loving than Yael One). Also: Tag Bauer, an enterprising TV showboat of a “field archeologist,” various spies and hit-men, the above-named buxom criminal with previously unknown ties to Elijah Jones, and Jones’ daughter, Ellen, who insists that her father, despite his end-of-life larceny, is not a bad man.
As always, several of the characters are charmingly over the top, the reader is required to wend her way through a labyrinthine plot, and all’s well that end’s well at the conclusion. Some folks don’t care for this: on Amazon today, although there are 206 five-star reviews, there are also 72 one-star reviews. Put me solidly in the three-star territory… you’re not going to learn a lesson of any kind in a Virgil Flowers novel, and there’s no character development to speak of, but you are going to have a heck of a ride.
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Posted in Commentary, Review
Tagged John Sandford, Lucas Davenport, Matthew McConaughey, Storm Front, Virgil Flowers