Virgil Flowers is growing up. In times past, you could always depend on Virgil jumping into bed with the prettiest suspect in his current case. You wouldn’t get upset with the man, because that was just . . . well, Virgil being Virgil. Which is to say, a bundle of contradictions....
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So, here’s Virgil Flowers again, called to another small Minnesota town to solve a mystery that has befuddled the local cops. This time it’s Wheatfield, home of the St. Mary’s Catholic Church where the Virgin Mary has miraculously appeared on several occasions. And that must be...
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Bestselling crime novelist John Sandford originally developed Virgil Flowers as a character in his long-running Prey series starring Lucas Davenport (another fascinating and entirely original Sandford character). The 12 excellent Virgil Flowers novels are a spinoff from the longer series. Writing...
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In most television cop shows, the clever detectives on the squad grapple with one baffling case. They solve it, of course. Then, in the next episode, they move on to another one. It’s neat, clean, and easy to follow. By contrast, the printed page offers space to paint a more realistic...
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On the first page of the latest Virgil Flowers novel we learn that David Birkmann is a killer. “He’d gotten away with it, he thought.” Naturally, since we also know that Virgil will be called on to investigate the murder, we’re perfectly well aware that David most certainly...
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An ancient artifact attracts a lot of attention in this delightful Virgil Flowers novel. The lot of the thriller writer is challenging. If you’re writing an ongoing series, how do you keep creating fresh new stories that readers will find engaging? Take, for example, Virgil Flowers of the...
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Any aspiring mystery and thriller writer would do well to study John Sandford’s Virgil Flowers novels. The ten books Sandford has written to date (as of March 2018) display several of the characteristics that make them all candidates for the bestseller lists. Bad Blood, the fourth novel in...
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Virgil Flowers is one of the most interesting characters in detective fiction today. He’s the top investigator in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. His boss, Lucas Davenport, gives him only the toughest cases. But he is in no way a stereotype. For one thing, he doesn’t...
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Virgil Flowers is a horndog who feels compelled to chase every pretty woman under the age of 50. Though his own faith rejects Jesus, he’s “the son of a Presbyterian minister and a professor of engineering, who saw in God the Great Engineer and believed as devoutly as her...
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Like a TV series that nobody wants to end, John Sandford’s Prey series spawned a spinoff. Virgil Flowers, who figures as a character in several of the Prey novels, was promoted to the starring role in a series of his own in 2007. Escape Clause, a novel that involves exploited migrant workers...
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Shadow Prey, the second of John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport novels, demonstrates why the long-running series has been reaching bestseller lists for nearly three decades. Sandford first introduces us to a young cop named Lawrence Duberville Clay as we observe him raping a drunken young...
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After reading (and reviewing here) 10 novels in John Sandford’s two long-running series featuring Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers, which all told now number 34 and counting, I thought it would be amusing to turn back the clock to the very first book in the Davenport series, Rules of Prey....
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Lucas Davenport took his first bow on stage in 1989 with the publication of John Sandford’s second novel, Rules of Prey. Now, 27 years and 26 books later in the Prey series, Davenport has left behind the bureaucratic hassles of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, where he led a...
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Now, 25 novels into John Sandford’s excellent Lucas Davenport series, I’m beginning to wonder whether the population of Minnesota includes a wildly disproportionate number of psychotic serial killers. Of course, that’s the case only in the author’s fevered imagination...
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It’s rare in my experience to come across funny crime fiction. Donald E. Westlake’s series about the master criminal John Dortmunder was a glaring exception and never failed to please. Carl Hiaasen’s novels about environmental crimes fit the bill, too. Timothy Hallinan writes...
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Lucas Davenport’s talented investigative crew at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (“others investigate bad guys, we apprehend them”) is dispersed throughout the country when all hell breaks loose with the discovery of a long-forgotten cistern containing the bones of...
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A review of Silken Prey, by John Sandford. @@@@ (4 out of 5). The brilliant lead investigator for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension tackles a murder that threatens to affect a close election to the United States Senate.
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A review of Mad River, by John Sandford. @@@ (3 out of 5). Virgil Flowers of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension follows up on a brutal and seemingly senseless murder in a small rural town and finds himself in competition with an unsavory local Sheriff to end a murder spree.
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A review of Stolen Prey, by John Sandford. @@@@ (4 out of 5). This 22nd tale of Lucas Davenport and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is populated by a truly motley crew, including three very young hitmen from a Mexican drug cartel who are called Uno, Dos, and Tres, because they’re all named Juan; a software millionaire and his young family; and two senior agents from the Mexican Federal Police;
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A review of Shock Wave: A Virgil Flowers Novel, by John Sandford. @@@@ (4 out of 5). In Shock Wave, the fifth in John Sanders’ Virgil Flowers series, Virgil is sent to investigate a fatal bombing at the site of a future big-box store that is carefully positioned not to be a Wal-Mart even though it clearly is.
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Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review,
with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review,
with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.