Book Review

By Derryll White

Sandford, John (1998). Secret Prey.

John Roswell Camp writes under the name of John Sandford. I just got back from the Invermere Public Library Book Sale, and took this one from the top of the pile. I have read Sandford for a long time and his Prey series featuring Lucas Davenport is not my favourite. I really enjoy the easy lifestyle and wit encompassed in the Virgil Flowers series, and his early Kidd series is still my favourite. The way he brought technology, stealth, an amazing girlfriend and the divination of tarot together always made Kidd stand apart.

Having said that, Sandford is still a master of dialogue in the league of Robert B. Parker. His women are sexy, smart and take no prisoners. With strong minds and acute self-awareness Susan O’Dell, Marcia Kresge and Marcy Sherrill could all own a reader’s heart. They talk straight, are attuned to all the nuances, sexual and otherwise, and add their own small twists as the story evolves.

And the story does evolve, in a humorous and action-packed way. I forgot what a good storyteller John Sandford is. There is a darkness that becomes a part of Davenport and Sandford keeps that present but in check. He propels the storyline to a clear conclusion. He wraps up all the loose ends, and there were a number of them. Then, at the conclusion, he leaves the reader laughing. So even Lucas Davenport is essential John Sandford reading. ‘Secret Prey’ is a brilliant piece of work and the reader is kept engaged all the way to the end.

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Excerpts from the novel:

OUT-OF-HIS-LEAGUE – But the sheriff had told him to keep an eye on them. What’d that mean?

And the bankers were annoyed, and their annoyance was not something his worn nerves could deal with. He could handle trailer-home fights and farm kids hustling toot, but people who’d gone to Harvard, and who drove Lincoln and Lexus sport-utes and wore eight-hundred-dollar après-hunt tweed jackets, undoubtedly woven by licensed leprechauns in the Auld Country – well, they made him nervous. Especially when one of them might be a killer.

STATUS – Few people outside of the top-management community realized the difference between, say, president and CEO on the one hand, and executive vice president on the other. One was an American aristocrat, who held the lives of thousands of people in his hands, while the other was just another suit, a face, a yellow necktie. A CEO had the company plane and a car and driver; an executive vice president had to fight to go business class.

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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