Buried Prey (A Prey Novel) - Sandford, John Review & Synopsis

Synopsis For twenty-five years the unsolved kidnapping of two young girls has haunted Minneapolis homicide detective Lucas Davenport. Today, the bodies have been found. Today, he returns to a crime-and a nightmare-darker than any before... A block on the edge of the Minneapolis loop is being razed when a macabre discovery is made: two girls buried under a rotted old house. Lucas Davenport knows how long they've been there. In 1985, he was part of the manhunt to track down two kidnapped sisters. They were never found-until today. With the bodies discovered, Davenport has the chance to return to the crime that has haunted him for years. The deeper he probes, the more one thing becomes clear: It wasn't just the bodies that were buried. It was the truth. Review John Sandford is the pseudonym for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp. He is the author of the Prey novels, the Kidd novels, the Virgil Flowers novels, and six other books, including three YA novels co-authored with his wife Michele Cook. Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Chapter 1 THEN Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 NOW Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 ALSO BY JOHN SANDFORD Rules of Prey Shadow Prey Eyes of Prey Silent Prey Winter Prey Night Prey Mind Prey Sudden Prey The Night Crew Secret Prey Certain Prey Easy Prey Chosen Prey Mortal Prey Naked Prey Hidden Prey Broken Prey Dead Watch Invisible Prey Phantom Prey Wicked Prey Storm Prey KIDD NOVELS The Fool's Run The Empress File The Devil's Code The Hanged Man's Song VIRGIL FLOWERS NOVELS Dark of the Moon Heat Lightning Rough Country Bad Blood G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Publishers Since 1838 Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA � Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) � Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England � Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) � Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia � (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) � Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India � Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) � Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Copyright � 2011 by John Sandford All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sandford, John, date. Buried prey / John Sandford. p. cm. ISBN: 9781101515037 1. Davenport, Lucas (Fictitious character)-Fiction. 2. Private investigators-Minnesota-Minneapolis-Fiction. 3. Cold cases (Criminal investigation)-Fiction. 4. Serial murders-Fiction. 5. Serial murder investigation-Fiction. 6. Minneapolis (Minn.)-Fiction. I. Title. PS3569.A516B 813'.54-dc22 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content. For Michele 1 The first machines on the site were the wreckers, like steel dinosaurs, plucking and pulling at the houses with jaws that ripped off chimneys, shingles, dormers, and eaves, clapboard and brick and stone and masonry, beams and stairs and balconies and joists, headers and doorjambs. Old dreams, dead ambitions, and lost lives, remembrance roses and spring lilacs, went in the dump trucks all together. When the wrecking was done, the diggers came in, cutting a gash in the black-and-tan soil that stretched down a city block. A dozen pieces of heavy equipment crawled down its length, Bobcats and Caterpillar D6s and Mack trucks, and one orange Kubota, grunting and struggling through the raw earth. Now gone silent as death. The equipment operators gathered in twos and threes, yellow helmets and deerskin work gloves, jeans and rough shirts, to talk about the situation. Slabs of concrete lay around the trench, pieces of what once had been basement floors and walls. Electric wire was gathered in hoops, pushed into a corner of the hole, to await removal; survey stakes marked the lines where new concrete would go in. None of it happening today. At one end of the gash, twelve men and four women gathered around a bundle of plastic sheeting, once clear, now a pinkishyellow with age. It was still set down in the earth, but the dirt on top of it had been swept away by hand. A few of the people were construction supervisors, marked by yellow, white, and orange hard hats. The rest were cops. One of the cops, whose name was Hote, and who was Minneapolis's sole cold-case investigator, was kneeling at the end of the bundle with her face four inches from the plastic. Two dead girls grinned back at her, through the plastic, their desiccated skin pulled tight over their cheek and jaw bones, their foreheads; their eyes were black pits, their lips were flattened scars, but their teeth were as white and shiny as the day they were murdered. Hote looked up and said, "It's them. I'm pretty sure. Sealed in there." THE DAY WAS HOT, hardly a cloud in the sky, the July sun burning down; but the soil was cool and damp, and smelled of rotted roots and a bit of sewage, from the torn-up sewer lines leading out of the hole. Another woman, who'd walked into the pit in low heels and two-hundred-dollar black wool slacks that were now flecked with the tan earth, asked, "Can you tell what happened? Were they dead when they were sealed in?" Hote stood up and brushed the dirt from her jeans and said, "I think so. It looks to me like they were hanged." "Strangled?" "Hanged," Hote repeated. "There appears to be some upward displacement of the cervical spine in both girls-but that's looking through a lot of plastic. Their arms go behind them, instead of lying by their sides, so I think they'll be tied or cuffed. Anyway-let's get them over to the ME." "What else?" "Marcy . . ." Hote was always reluctant to commit herself without all the facts; a personal characteristic. Most cops were willing to bullshit endlessly about possibilities, including alien abduction and satanic cults. "Anything?" "There's a lot of tissue left," Hote said. "They're mummified-it's almost like they were freeze-dried inside the plastic." "Will there be anything organic left by the killer?" The woman meant semen, but didn't use the word. If they could recover semen, they could get DNA. "If there was anything to begin with, it's possible there are still traces," Hote said. "Since hardly anybody had heard of DNA back then, we might find the killer's hair on them. . . . But, I'm no scientist. So who knows? Let's get them to the ME." One of the cops in the back said, "Marcy? Davenport's coming down." Marcy Sherrill, head of Minneapolis Homicide, turned and looked over her shoulder. Lucas Davenport, a dark-haired, broadshouldered man in black slacks, French-blue shirt, his suit jacket hung by a finger over his shoulder, was trudging down the earthen ramp toward the group around the plastic sepulchre. He looked as though he'd just stepped out of a Salvatore Ferragamo advertisement, his eyes, shirt, and tie all entangled in a fashionable blue vibration. She said, "Okay. This makes my day." An older man said, "He worked on it. This." He gestured at the plastic. "I don't think so," Sherrill said. "He'd have been too young." "I remember," the old man said. "He was all over it. I think it was his first case in plainclothes." SHERRILL WAS THE SENIOR active Minneapolis cop on the scene, a solid, raven-haired woman in her late thirties, with a great slashing white smile and what an older generation of cops called a "good figure." She'd had a reputation as a cop not afraid of a fistfight, and still carried a lead-weighted sap on a key ring. Sherrill had come on the police force at a time when women were still suspect when it came to doing street work. She'd erased that attitude quickly enough, and now was accepted as a cop-cop, rather than as a woman cop, or, as they were still occasionally called, a Dickless Tracy. She'd hardly mellowed as she moved up through the ranks and would someday, most people thought, either be the Minneapolis chief or go into politics. There were five retired cops in the group around her, men who'd worked on the original investigation. As soon as the bodies had been discovered, the police had been called, and word of the find had begun leaking out. All over the metro area, aging cops and ex-cops got in their cars and headed downtown, to look for themselves, to see the girls, and to talk about those days: the hot summers, the cold winters, all the time on the sidewalks before high-tech came in, computers and cell phones and DNA. DAVENPORT CAME UP, and the gray-hairs nodded at him-they all knew him, from his time in Minneapolis-and he shook hands with a couple of them, and a couple who didn't like him edged away, and Sherrill asked, "How'd you hear?" "It's gone viral, at least in the cop shops," he said, peering at the plastic sheeting. He worked for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and, with his close relationship with the governor, was probably the most influential cop in the state. Minneapolis was technically within his jurisdiction, but he was polite. He flipped a thumb at the sheeting and asked, "Do you mind if I look?" "Go ahead," Sherrill said. Hote pointed and said, "They're faceup, heads at that end." Lucas squatted in Hote's knee prints at the end of the plastic, looked down at the withered faces for a full thirty seconds, then, paying no attention to the neat crease on his wool-blend slacks, got on his knees and crawled slowly down the length of the bundle, his face an inch from the plastic. After a moment, he grunted, stood up, brushed his knees, then said, "That's Nancy on the left, Mary on the right." "Hard to know for sure," Hote said. "It likely is them-the size is right, the hair coloring . . ." Lucas said, "It's them. Nancy was the taller one. Nancy was wearing a blouse with little red hearts on it, that she got from her father on Valentine's Day. It was the last gift he gave her. It's wadded up between her thighs. I can see the hearts." Sherrill looked up at the sides of the trench and said, "I wonder what the address was here? We need to pull some aerials and figure out which one was which. I thought the guy who did it . . ." "Terry Scrape," Lucas said. "He didn't do it." She stared at him: "I thought that was settled. That he was killed . . ." Lucas shook his head. "He was. I was there. I thought, back then, that there was a chance he was involved. But with this . . . I don't think so. There was somebody else. Somebody with a lot more energy than Scrape ever had. Somebody pretty smart. I could feel him, but I could never find him. Anyway, he hung it on Scrape like a hat on a witch, and we had us a witch hunt." "I gotta look at the file," Sherrill said. "Scrape lived way over by Uptown," Lucas said, remembering. "There's no way he killed these kids and buried them in the basement of a private house, under the concrete floor. He was only here for a few weeks, homeless most of the time. He lived in a hole under a tree, for part of the time, for Christ's sakes. He didn't even have a car." "Gotta get the addresses, see who was living here," Sherrill said again. Lucas looked up out of the hole at the surrounding neighborhood, as Sherrill had, and said, "I knocked on two hundred doors. Me and Sloan. We never got within two miles of this place. Never crossed the river." "Mark Towne owned a bunch of these houses down here," said one of the older cops. "The Towne Houses. I don't know if these were his." Lucas said, "That seems right to me. Before the kids came in, it was mostly elderly. Retired railroad workers, lots of them. Towne was buying them up for a few thousand bucks apiece." Sherrill said, "We'll check." "Towne got killed in a car crash, maybe ten, fifteen years ago," somebody offered. Lucas nodded at the bodies: "How'd they come out clean like this? So flat?" A guy in a yellow helmet said, "I was pulling up the pieces of the basement slab, to load 'em up." He gestured at his Cat. "I got hold of that one block and tipped it up, and there they were." "You could see them?" Lucas wasn't disbelieving, just curious. "I could see the plastic and something in the plastic. I had to check in case . . ." He stopped and looked around the hole, searching for a place that didn't look back at him with bony eye sockets. "You know what? I got the creeps looking at it. I had a feeling it was something bad, before I ever got down to look." Lucas nodded at him, said, "Bad day," and then turned back to Sherrill. "I'd keep the slabs around. He must've poured the concrete right over the top of them. You might find fingerprints, some kind of impressions. Something." She nodded. "We'll do that." "And you gotta find the Joneses, the parents, and let them know, right away. Before the news gets out. If you want, I've got a researcher who can find them, and I can have her call you with the phone numbers. I heard they got divorced a couple years after the kids were killed . . . but I don't know that for sure." "If you've got somebody who could do that . . . but have him call me." "Her," Lucas said. And, "I will." SHERRILL AND DAVENPORT drifted away from the group, and Sherrill asked, "Haven't seen you for a while. How've you been?" "Busy, but nothing crazy," Lucas said. He touched her on the shoulder, and added, "This Jones thing. It was amazing, if you worked it. Big news-cute little blond girls, vanishing like that. The way things are now, I doubt anybody will care. It was too long ago. But the guy who did it is still around. We can't let it slide." "We won't let it slide," she said. "But you've got other things to do, just like I do. And the girls are dead." "You sound like you've got a special interest," Sherrill said. Lucas looked... Buried Prey For twenty-five years the unsolved kidnapping of two young girls has haunted Minneapolis homicide detective Lucas Davenport. Today, the bodies have been found. Today, he returns to a crime—and a nightmare—darker than any before... A block on the edge of the Minneapolis loop is being razed when a macabre discovery is made: two girls buried under a rotted old house. Lucas Davenport knows how long they’ve been there. In 1985, he was part of the manhunt to track down two kidnapped sisters. They were never found—until today. With the bodies discovered, Davenport has the chance to return to the crime that has haunted him for years. The deeper he probes, the more one thing becomes clear: It wasn't just the bodies that were buried. It was the truth. For twenty-five years the unsolved kidnapping of two young girls has haunted Minneapolis homicide detective Lucas Davenport." Field of Prey #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford continues his phenomenal Prey series—and “for those who think they know everything they need to know about Lucas Davenport, [Field of Prey] proves them wrong…” (Huffington Post) On the night of the fifth of July, in Red Wing, Minnesota, a boy smelled death in a cornfield off an abandoned farm. When the county deputy took a look, he found a body stuffed in a cistern. Then another. And another. By the time Lucas Davenport was called in, it was fifteen and counting, the victims killed over just as many summers, regular as clockwork. How could this happen in a town so small without anyone noticing? And with the latest victim only two weeks dead, Davenport knows the killer is still at work, still close by. Most likely someone the folks of Red Wing see every day. Won’t they be surprised. ALSO BY JOHN SANDFORD Rules of Prey Shadow Prey Eyes of Prey Silent Prey Winter Prey Night Prey Mind Prey Sudden Prey The ... Rough Country Bad Blood Shock Wave Mad River Storm Front FIELD OF PREY JOHN SANDFORD G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW." Golden Prey THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Lucas Davenport’s first case as a U.S. Marshal sends him into uncharted territory in the thrilling new novel in the #1 New York Times-bestselling series. The man was smart and he didn’t mind killing people. Welcome to the big leagues, Davenport. Thanks to some very influential people whose lives he saved, Lucas is no longer working for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, but for the U.S. Marshals Service, and with unusual scope. He gets to pick his own cases, whatever they are, wherever they lead him. And where they’ve led him this time is into real trouble. A Biloxi, Mississippi, drug-cartel counting house gets robbed, and suitcases full of cash disappear, leaving behind five bodies, including that of a six-year-old girl. Davenport takes the case, which quickly spirals out of control, as cartel assassins, including a torturer known as the “Queen of home-improvement tools” compete with Davenport to find the Dixie Hicks shooters who knocked over the counting house. Things get ugly real fast, and neither the cartel killers nor the holdup men give a damn about whose lives Davenport might have saved; to them, he’s just another large target. Filled with his trademark razor-sharp plotting and some of the best characters in suspense fiction, Golden Prey is further reason why “Sandford has always been at the top of any list of great mystery writers” (The Huffington Post). ALSO BY JOHN SANDFORD Rules of Prey Shadow Prey Eyes of Prey Silent Prey Winter Prey Night Prey Mind Prey Sudden Prey The ... VIRGIL FLOWERS NOVELS Dark of the Moon Heat Lightning Rough Country Bad Blood Shock Wave Mad River Storm Front ..." Invisible Prey **Don't miss John Sandford's brand-new thriller Ocean Prey – out now** A Lucas Davenport thriller by internationally bestselling novelist John Sandford In the richest neighbourhood of Minneapolis, two elderly women lie murdered in their home, beaten to death with a metal pipe, the rooms ransacked. It's clearly a random break-in by someone looking for drug money: an open-and-shut homicide case. But as he looks more closely, Lucas Davenport begins to suspect that the handful of small items that were stolen from the crime scene might have more significance than anyone initially realised. Gradually, a pattern begins to emerge - and it will lead Davenport somewhere he never expected. ***READERS LOVE THE PREY SERIES*** 'John Sandford knows all there is to know about detonating the gut-level shocks of a good thriller' The New York Times Book Review ? 'The best Lucas Davenport story so far. The man has a fine touch for outlaws' Stephen King on Golden Prey 'Sandford’s trademark blend of rough humor and deadly action keeps the pages turning until the smile-inducing wrap-up, which reveals the fates of a number of his quirky, memorable characters' Publishers Weekly on Golden Prey 'It appears there is no limit to John Sandford’s ability to keep new breath and blood flowing into his Lucas Davenport series. This is a series you must be reading if you are not already' Bookreporter.com 'Sandford has always been at the top of any list of great mystery writers. His writing and the appeal of his lead character are as fresh as ever' The Huffington Post 'Sandford is consistently brilliant' Cleveland Plain Dealer This is a series you must be reading if you are not already' Bookreporter.com 'Sandford has always been at the top of any list of great mystery writers." Silken Prey Murder. Scandal. Politics. And one billionaire heiress so dangerous in so many ways. An explosive Lucas Davenport thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford. All hell has broken loose in the capital. An influential state senator has been caught with something very, very nasty on his office computer. The governor can’t believe it—the senator’s way too smart for that, even if he is from the other party. Something’s not right. As Davenport investigates, the trail leads to a political fixer who has disappeared, then—troublingly—to the Minneapolis police department itself, and most unsettling of all, to a woman who could give Machiavelli lessons in manipulation. She has very definite ideas about the way the world should work—along with the money, ruthlessness, and cold-blooded will to make it happen. A Lucas Davenport Novel John Sandford . 14 . CHAPTER. option The auren last on camera of Taryn had the put celery was Grant's together inactive, with bedroom pimento a munchie which security cheese meant plate camera. nobody as and he ..." Mad River **Don't miss John Sandford's brand-new thriller Ocean Prey – out now** The sixth Virgil Flowers novel by internationally bestselling author John Sandford Bonnie and Clyde, they thought. And what's-his-name, the sidekick. Three teenagers with dead-end lives, and chips on their shoulders, and guns. The first person they killed was a highway patrolman. The second was a woman during a robbery. Then, hell, why not keep on going? As their crime spree cuts a swath through rural Minnesota, some of it captured on the killers' cell phones and sent to a local television station, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers joins the growing army of cops trying to run them down. But even he doesn't realize what's about to happen next. * * * Praise for John Sandford and the Virgil Flower novels * * * ‘Along the way to the satisfying ending, Virgil displays the rough humor and rough justice that make him such an appealing character’ Publishers Weekly on Deep Freeze ‘A knowing portrait of small-town life layered into a very well plotted mystery. Virgil understands that, in small towns, no one ever outgrows high school... One of the very best novels in a superior series’Booklist (starred review) on Deep Freeze ‘Add a gripping storyline, a generous helping of exquisitely conceived characters and laugh-out-loud humor that produce explosive guffaws, not muted chuckles, and you’re in for the usual late-night, don’t-even-think-of-stopping treat when Flowers hits town’ Richmond Times-Dispatch on Deep Freeze ‘An outstanding novel’ Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Escape Clause ‘Perfect entertainment’ Kirkus Reviews on Escape Clause One of the very best novels in a superior series’Booklist (starred review) on Deep Freeze ‘Add a gripping storyline, a generous helping of exquisitely conceived characters and laugh-out-loud humor that produce explosive guffaws, not ..." Escape Clause Whenever you hear the sky rumble, that usually means a storm. In Virgil Flowers’ case, make that two. The first storm comes from, of all places, the Minnesota zoo. Two large, and very rare, Amur tigers have vanished from their cage, and authorities are worried sick that they’ve been stolen for their body parts. Traditional Chinese medicine prizes those parts for home remedies, and people will do extreme things to get what they need. Some of them are a great deal more extreme than others – as Virgil is about to find out. Then there’s the homefront. Virgil’s relationship with his girlfriend Frankie has been getting kind of serious, but when Frankie’s sister moves in for the summer, the situation gets a lot more complicated. Forget a storm – this one’s a tornado. John Sandford . The Hanged Man's Song VIRGIL FLOWERS NOVELS Dark of the Moon Heat Lightning Rough Country Bad Blood Shock Wave Mad River Storm Front Deadline STAND-ALONE NOVELS Saturn Run The Night Crew Dead Watch WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED ..." Shock Wave The fifth Virgil Flowers novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford A billion-dollar superstore has its sights set on a small Minnesota river town for its next outlet. Two very angry groups want to stop it: local merchants, fearing for their businesses, and environmentalists, predicting ecological disaster. The protests are ignored, until a bomb goes off at the megastore’s Michigan headquarters—the first of a series of explosions. The blasts are meant to inflict maximum damage and utmost fear. They do. Virgil Flowers has been enlisted to find out who’s behind the dangerous acts, but the answer he uncovers may be the biggest shock of all. John Sandford . Keep reading for an excerpt from the next Virgil Flowers novel , MAD RIVER 1 Jimmy Sharp stepped back from the curb and impatiently." Storm Front 'The Dresden Files is my favourite series ever' Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind ***THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES NO.1 BESTSELLING SERIES*** Meet Harry Dresden, Chicago's first (and only) Wizard P.I. Turns out the 'everyday' world is full of strange and magical things - and most of them don't play well with humans. That's where Harry comes in. Harry's business as a private investigator has been quiet lately - so when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, he's seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry's name. Magic - it can get a guy killed. The first case file of Harry Dresden, private investigator and wizard, Storm Front is the first novel in the Sunday Times bestselling Dresden Files series, perfect for fans of Supernatural and urban fantasy fiction by authors such as Benedict Jacka and Ben Aaronovitch. 'Butcher's storytelling is satisfying on a level that's bone-deep' io9 'One of the most reliable post-Buffy supernatural thriller series on offer' Time Out 'Dresden has a vitality that few urban fantasy heroes can match' SFX The Dresden Files novels begin with STORM FRONT, and continue with FOOL MOON, GRAVE PERIL, SUMMER KNIGHT, DEATH MASKS, BLOOD RITES, DEAD BEAT, PROVEN GUILTY, WHITE NIGHT, SMALL FAVOUR, TURN COAT, CHANGES, GHOST STORY, COLD DAYS and SKIN GAME. For more of Harry Dresden's adventures, check out the Dresden Files short story collections SIDE JOBS and BRIEF CASES. 'Butcher's storytelling is satisfying on a level that's bone-deep' io9 'One of the most reliable post-Buffy supernatural thriller series on offer' Time Out 'Dresden has a vitality that few urban fantasy heroes can match' SFX The Dresden ..." The Hanged Man's Song The ultimate con game thriller from the internationally bestselling master of suspense, John Sandford A super-hacker friend of Kidd's named Bobby suddenly disappears from cyberspace, and Kidd - artist, computer ace and professional criminal - knows that isn't a good sign. Going over to his house, he finds Bobby dead on the floor, his head bashed in and his laptop missing. The secrets on that laptop are potent enough to hang Kidd and everybody else in Bobby's circle - just to start with. But before Kidd and his partner LuEllen can get very far in their attempts to track the laptop down, the secrets start coming out anyway - and they're much more staggering than even Kidd imagined. Because it's not just about the lives of a circle of friends and colleagues now - it's about something much, much bigger. And much, much more terrifying . . . ***Praise for John Sandford*** ‘One of the great novelists of all time’ Stephen King ‘A series writer who reads like a breath of fresh air’ Daily Mirror ‘Delivers twists to the very last sentence’ Daily Mail ‘Crime writer John Sandford is one of the best around’ Sun 'John Sandford knows all there is to know about detonating the gut-level shocks of a good thriller' The New York Times Book Review ? 'Sandford is consistently brilliant' Cleveland Plain Dealer ‘Perfect entertainment’ Kirkus Reviews on Escape Clause Kidd 4 John Sandford . Masked Prey KIDD NOVELS The Fool's Run The Empress File The Devil's Code VIRGIL FLOWERS NOVELS Dark of the Moon Heat Lightning Rough Country Bad Blood Shock Wave Mad River Storm Front Deadline Escape Clause Deep ..." John Sandford Lucas Davenport Novels 6-10 Novels six through ten in #1 New York Times bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Sandford’s Prey series, featuring Minneapolis homicide investigator Lucas Davenport. NIGHT PREY A savage psychopath is playing cat and mouse with Lucas Davenport. But both killer and detective find themselves at odds with a female investigator who has intensely personal reasons for catching the killer herself—and fast. MIND PREY Lucas Davenport has met his match—a nemesis more intelligent, and more depraved, than any he has tracked before. A pure, wanton killer who knows more about mind games than Lucas himself—and with a female psychiatrist already in his trap, he’s one step ahead. SUDDEN PREY The crime spree should have ended when Lucas Davenport killed the female bank robber during the shoot-out. But it’s just beginning, because the woman’s husband isn’t about to let Lucas—or anyone he loves—escape retribution. SECRET PREY When a wealthy banker is shot dead during a hunting trip, Lucas Davenport's routine murder investigation turns into a cat-and-mouse game with a killer who won't hesitate to take the fight to Lucas himself. And those he loves… CERTAIN PREY A wealthy socialite has been murdered. Now the killer must tie up a few loose ends. One is the witness. The other is Lucas Davenport—and of all the criminals Davenport has hunted, none has been as efficient or as ferociously intelligent as the woman who’s hunting him. John Sandford . Invisible Prey Phantom Prey Wicked Prey Storm Prey Buried Prey Stolen Prey Silken Prey The Night Crew Dead Watch KIDD NOVELS The Fool's Run The Empress File The Devil's Code The Hanged Man's Song VIRGIL FLOWERS NOVELS ..." Broken Prey In the wake of a series of killings that disturbingly emulates the works of a trio of inmates currently being held at the Minnesota Security Hospital, Lucas Davenport investigates a missing man who was released from the hospital weeks earlier. By the author of Hidden Prey. Lit Guild Main. BOMC Main. Doubleday Main. Mystery Guild Main. In the wake of a series of killings that disturbingly emulates the works of a trio of inmates currently being held at the Minnesota Security Hospital, Lucas Davenport investigates a missing man who was released from the hospital weeks ..." Mortal Prey **Don't miss John Sandford's brand-new thriller Ocean Prey – out now** A Lucas Davenport thriller by internationally bestselling novelist John Sandford Clara Rinker is a pleasant, softly spoken, low-key Southerner. She's also the best hitwoman in the business. Lucas Davenport should know - she almost killed him. Clara is now retired and living in Mexico with her boyfriend, the son of a local drug lord. When a sniper's bullet narrowly misses her and kills her boyfriend, the boy's father vows vengeance, but Rinker knows something he doesn't: the boy wasn't the target - she was. Now she is going to have to disappear to find the killer herself. Davenport is drafted to help track down the missing assassin and, with his fiance deep in wedding preparations, he's happy to go. But he has no idea what he's getting into. Rinker is as unpredictable as ever, and between her, her old bosses in the St. Louis mob, the Mexican druglord, and the combined, sometimes warring, arms of U.S. law enforcement, this is one case that is only going to get more dangerous... ***READERS LOVE THE PREY SERIES*** 'John Sandford knows all there is to know about detonating the gut-level shocks of a good thriller' The New York Times Book Review ? 'The best Lucas Davenport story so far. The man has a fine touch for outlaws' Stephen King on Golden Prey 'Sandford’s trademark blend of rough humor and deadly action keeps the pages turning until the smile-inducing wrap-up, which reveals the fates of a number of his quirky, memorable characters' Publishers Weekly on Golden Prey 'It appears there is no limit to John Sandford’s ability to keep new breath and blood flowing into his Lucas Davenport series. This is a series you must be reading if you are not already' Bookreporter.com 'Sandford has always been at the top of any list of great mystery writers. His writing and the appeal of his lead character are as fresh as ever' The Huffington Post 'Sandford is consistently brilliant' Cleveland Plain Dealer JOHN . SANDFORD . Rules of Prey KIDD NOVELS Shadow Prey The Fool's Run Eyes of Prey The Empress File The Devil's Code Silent Prey Winter Prey The Hanged Man's Song Night Prey VIRGIL FLOWERS NOVELS Mind Prey Sudden Prey Dark of the Moon ..." Certain Prey “One of [the] best” (Orlando Sentinel) Lucas Davenport Novels—now with a New Introduction by the Author. Clara Rinker is twenty-eight, beautiful, charmingly southern—and the best hit woman in the business. She just goes about her business, collects her money, and goes home. Her latest hit sounds simple: a defense attorney wants a rival eliminated. No problem—until a witness survives. Clara usually knows how to deal with loose ends: cut them off, one by one, until they're all gone. This time, there’s one loose end that’s hard to shake. Lucas Davenport has no idea of the toll this case is about to take on him. Clara knows his weak spots. She knows how to penetrate them, and how to use them. And when a woman like Clara has the advantage, no one is safe. TITLES BY JOHN SANDFORD Rules of Prey Shadow Prey Eyes of Prey Silent Prey Winter Prey Night Prey Mind Prey Sudden ... Prey Wicked Prey Storm Prey Buried Prey Stolen Prey Silken Prey Field of Prey Gathering Prey Extreme Prey KIDD NOVELS ..." Storm Prey When a simple robbery turns deadly, the thieves close in on the only witness: Lucas Davenport's wife... TITLES BY JOHN SANDFORD Rules of Prey Shadow Prey Eyes of Prey Silent Prey Winter Prey Night Prey Mind Prey Sudden ... Prey Wicked Prey Storm Prey Buried Prey Stolen Prey Silken Prey Field of Prey Gathering Prey Extreme Prey KIDD NOVELS ..." Naked Prey The #1 New York Times bestselling Lucas Davenport novel from John Sandford. Two people are found hanging naked from a tree in the woods of northern Minnesota. What makes the situation particularly sensitive is the bodies are of a black man and a white woman. Lynching is the word everyone’s trying not to say, but as Lucas Davenport begins to discover, the murders are not at all what they appear to be. And there is worse to come—much, much worse. “All but impossible to put down.”—The Washington Post “Fast paced and full of surprises, this may be Sandford’s best novel yet.”—Library Journal The #1 New York Times bestselling Lucas Davenport novel from John Sandford." Rules of Prey #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford's “haunting, unforgettable, ice-blooded thriller”* that introduced Lucas Davenport... The killer was mad but brilliant. He left notes with every woman he killed. Rules of murder: Never have a motive. Never follow a discernible pattern. Never carry a weapon after it has been used...So many rules to his sick, violent games of death. But Lucas Davenport, the cop who’s out to get him, isn’t playing by the rules. “Terrifying...Sandford has crafted the kind of trimmed-to-the-bone thriller that is hard to put down…scary...intriguing...unpredictable.”—Chicago Tribune “Rules of Prey is so chilling that you’re almost afraid to turn the pages. So mesmerizing you cannot stop...A crackle of surprises.”—*Carl Hiaasen “Sleek and nasty...A big scary, suspenseful read, and I loved every minute of it.”—Stephen King “A cop and a killer you will remember for a long, long time.”—Robert B. Parker ALSO BY JOHN SANDFORD Rules of Prey Shadow Prey Eyes of Prey Silent Prey Winter Prey Night Prey Mind Prey Sudden Prey ... Phantom Prey Wicked Prey Storm Prey Buried Prey Stolen Prey Silken Prey Field of Prey Gathering Prey KIDD NOVELS ..." Silent Prey Make noise for a new Prey package and new author introduction! Dr. Mike Bekker, a psychotic pathologist, is back on the streets, doing what he does best—murdering one helpless victim after another. Lucas Davenport knows he should have killed Bekker when he had the chance. Now he has a second opportunity—and the time to hesitate is through. TITLES BY JOHN SANDFORD Rules of Prey Shadow Prey Eyes of Prey Silent Prey Winter Prey Night Prey Mind Prey Sudden ... Prey Wicked Prey Storm Prey Buried Prey Stolen Prey Silken Prey Field of Prey Gathering Prey Extreme Prey KIDD NOVELS ..." Hidden Prey **Don't miss John Sandford's brand-new thriller Masked Prey, available now** A Lucas Davenport thriller by internationally bestselling novelist John Sandford. Theories abound when a Russian gets himself killed on the shore of Lake Superior - not just killed, but shot with fifty-year-old bullets. And his identity remains a secret: his personal papers say one thing; the FBI thinks something else entirely -- ex-KGB. Whoever he is, the dead man had very high government connections, so Lucas Davenport gets the call to investigate. Well, Lucas and a mysterious Russian cop with secrets all her own. Together, they'll follow a trail back to another place and another time, and battle the shadows they discover there... shadows that turn out to be both very real and very deadly. Because someone with an unknowable agenda and a very old grudge has every reason to want the dead Russian to remain unidentified... and will do whatever it takes to keep Lucas and his new partner from revealing the truth of their hidden prey. ***READERS LOVE THE PREY SERIES*** 'The best Lucas Davenport story so far. The man has a fine touch for outlaws' Stephen King on Golden Prey 'Sandford’s trademark blend of rough humor and deadly action keeps the pages turning until the smile-inducing wrap-up, which reveals the fates of a number of his quirky, memorable characters' Publishers Weekly on Golden Prey 'It appears there is no limit to John Sandford’s ability to keep new breath and blood flowing into his Lucas Davenport series. This is a series you must be reading if you are not already' Bookreporter.com 'Sandford has always been at the top of any list of great mystery writers. His writing and the appeal of his lead character are as fresh as ever' The Huffington Post 'Sandford is consistently brilliant' Cleveland Plain Dealer This is a series you must be reading if you are not already' Bookreporter.com 'Sandford has always been at the top of any list of great mystery writers." Ocean Prey Fan-favorite heroes Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers join forces on a deadly maritime case in the remarkable new novel from #1 New York Times-bestselling author John Sandford. An off-duty Coast Guardsman is fishing with his family when he calls in some suspicious behavior from a nearby boat. It's a snazzy craft, slick and outfitted with extra horsepower, and is zipping along until it slows to pick up a surfaced diver . . . a diver who was apparently alone, without his own boat, in the middle of the ocean. None of it makes sense unless there's something hinky going on, and his hunch is proved right when all three Guardsmen who come out to investigate are shot and killed. They're federal officers killed on the job, which means the case is the FBI's turf. When the FBI's investigation stalls out, they call in Lucas Davenport. And when his case turns lethal, Davenport will need to bring in every asset he can claim, including a detective with a fundamentally criminal mind: Virgil Flowers. ... JOHN SANDFORD KIDD NOVELS The Fool's Run The Empress File The Devil's Code The Hanged Man's Song VIRGIL FLOWERS NOVELS Dark of the Moon Heat Lightning Rough Country Bad Blood Shock Wave Mad River Storm Front Deadline Rules of Prey ..." A History of American Literature A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 1950 TO THE PRESENT Featuring works from notable authors as varied as Salinger and the Beats to Vonnegut, Capote, Morrison, Rich, Walker, Eggers, and DeLillo, A History of American Literature: 1950 to the Present offers a comprehensive analysis of the wide range of literary works produced in the United States over the last six decades and a fascinating survey of the dramatic changes during America’s transition from the innocence of the fifties to the harsh realities of the first decade of the new millennium. Author Linda Wagner-Martin - a highly acclaimed authority on all facets of modern American literature - covers major works of drama, poetry, fiction, non- fiction, memoirs, and popular genres such as science fiction and detective novels. Viewing works produced during this fertile literary period from a wide-ranging perspective, Wagner-Martin considers literature in relation to such issues as the politics of civil rights, feminism, sexual preferences, and race- and gender-based marketing. She also places a special emphasis on works produced during the twenty-first century, and writings influenced by recent historic events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and the global financial crisis. With its careful balance of scholarly precision and accessibility, A History of American Literature: 1950 to the Present provides readers of all levels with rich and revealing insights into the diversity of literary forms and influences that characterize postmodern America. “A monumental distillation of an enormous range of material, Wagner-Martin’s rich book should be required reading for anyone grappling with making sense of the prolific, broad-spectrum, and diverse writing in the US since 1950.” Thadious M. Davis, University of Pennsylvania “Linda Wagner-Martin’s history impressively and judiciously surveys all fields of American writing over the past sixty years, taking full account of significant cultural and historical contexts and the major critical commentaries that have helped shape our understanding of developments in the second half of the last century and the dozen years following the millennium. Balanced, informative, and always highly readable there is much here for general readers, students, and specialists alike.” Christopher MacGowan, the College of William and Mary Other Asian American women writers to note are Susan Choi and Monique Truong. The Korean American Choi is best known for A Person of Interest (2008) and two earlier novels , American Woman , 2003, and The Foreign Student , 1998." Uncaged (The Singular Menace, 1) A New York Times bestseller! John Sandford and Michele Cook debut a high-octane thriller series about a ruthless corporation, unspeakable experiments, and a fight to expose the truth. Perfect for fans of James Dashner's The Maze Runner. Shay Remby arrives in Hollywood with $58 and a handmade knife, searching for her brother, Odin. Odin’s a brilliant hacker but a bit of a loose cannon. He and a group of radical animal-rights activists hit a Singular Corp. research lab in Eugene, Oregon. The raid was a disaster, but Odin escaped with a set of highly encrypted flash drives and a post-surgical dog. When Shay gets a frantic 3 a.m. phone call from Odin—talking about evidence of unspeakable experiments, and a ruthless corporation, and how he must hide—she’s concerned. When she gets a menacing visit from Singular’s security team, she knows: her brother’s a dead man walking. What Singular doesn’t know—yet—is that 16-year-old Shay is every bit as ruthless as their security force, and she will burn Singular to the ground, if that’s what it takes to save her brother. ALSO BY JOHN SANDFORD LUCAS DAVENPORT NOVELS Rules of Prey Shadow Prey Eyes of Prey Silent Prey Winter Prey Night Prey ... Prey Invisible Prey Phantom Prey Wicked Prey Storm Prey Buried Prey Stolen Prey Silken Prey VIRGIL FLOWERS NOVELS ..." The Night Crew #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford takes all the action and suspense of his acclaimed Prey novels and heads west to the dark gleam of L.A. A mobile unit of video freelancers, the Night Crew prowl the midnight streets to sell to the highest network bidder. Murders. Robberies. High-speed chases. For them, it is an exhilerating life. But tonight, two deaths will change everything... “With its pulse-quickening plot and attractive heroine, you’ll be hooked to the finish.”—People TITLES BY JOHN SANDFORD Rules of Prey Hidden Prey Shadow Prey Broken Prey Eyes of Prey Invisible Prey Silent Prey ... Prey Easy Prey Gathering Prey Chosen Prey Extreme Prey Mortal Prey Golden Prey Naked Prey Twisted Prey KIDD NOVELS The ..." Outrage (The Singular Menace, 2) John Sandford and Michele Cook follow up their New York Times bestseller, UNCAGED, with the next nail-biting installment in The Singular Menace series. Perfect for fans of The Maze Runner! Shay Remby and her gang of renegades have struck a blow to the Singular Corporation. When they rescued Shay’s brother, Odin, from a secret Singular lab, they also liberated a girl. Singular has been experimenting on her, trying to implant a U.S. senator’s memories into her brain—with partial success. Fenfang is now a girl who literally knows too much. Can the knowledge brought by ex-captives Odin and Fenfang help Shay and her friends expose the crimes of this corrupt corporation? Singular has already killed one of Shay’s band to protect their secrets. How many more will die before the truth is exposed? ALSO BY JOHN SANDFORD LUCAS DAVENPORT NOVELS Rules of Prey Shadow Prey Eyes of Prey Silent Prey Winter Prey Night Prey ... Prey Broken Prey Invisible Prey Phantom Prey Wicked Prey Storm Prey Buried Prey Stolen Prey Silken Prey Field of ..." Righteous Prey The new Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers novel from Number One bestselling author. ‘We're going to murder people who need to be murdered.’ A group of vigilantes known only as ‘The Five’ are targeting the worst of society – rapists, murderers and thieves – and they use their unlimited resources to offset the damage done by those who they’ve killed, donating untraceable Bitcoin to charities and victims via the Dark Web. Soon, they are the most popular figures on social media . . . but their motives may not be entirely pure. After a woman is murdered in the Twin Cities, Virgil Flowers and Lucas Davenport are sent to investigate. The killings are smart and carefully choreographed, and with no apparent direct connection to the victims, The Five are virtually untraceable. But if anyone can stop The Five, it will be Davenport and Flowers. Praise for John Sandford: ‘One of the great novelists of all time’ Stephen King ‘A series writer who reads like a breath of fresh air’ Daily Mirror ‘John Sandford knows all there is to know about detonating the gut-level shocks of a good thriller’ New York Times Book Review ‘John Sandford has the Midas touch’ Huffington Post ‘Delivers twists to the very last sentence’ Daily Mail ‘Crime writer John Sandford is one of the best around’ Sun A Lucas Davenport & Virgil Flowers thriller John Sandford ... Hanged Man's Song VIRGIL FLOWERS NOVELS Dark of the Moon Heat Lightning Rough Country Bad Blood Shock Wave Mad River Storm Front Deadline Escape Clause Deep Freeze Holy Ghost ..." Escape Clause [Large Print]/ John Sandford Whenever you hear the sky rumble, that usually means a storm. In Virgil Flowers's case, make that two. The first comes from, of all places, the Minnesota zoo. Two large Siberian tigers have vanished from their cage, and authorities are very concerned that they've been stolen for their organs. Traditional Chinese medicine prizes their parts for home remedies, and people will do extreme things to get - and keep - what they need. As Virgil is about to find out. Then there's the home front. Virgil's relationship with his girlfriend, Frankie, has been getting kind of serious, but when Frankie's sister, Sparkle, moves in for the summer, things get a lot more complicated. Sparkle has a roving eye, and it's fixed right on Virgil. Forget a storm - this one's a tornado. Whenever you hear the sky rumble, that usually means a storm."