Binding: Hardcover Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54 EAN: 9780399155000 ISBN: 0399155007 Label: Putnam Adult Manufacturer: Putnam Adult Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 384 Publication Date: 2008-05-06 Publisher: Putnam Adult Studio: Putnam Adult
Editorial Review:
Lucas Davenport has had disturbing cases before— but never one quite like this, in the shocking new Prey novel from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author.
John Sandford’s most recent Davenport novel, Invisible Prey, was hailed as “one of his best books in recent memory” (The Washington Post); “as fresh and entertaining as ever” (Chicago Sun-Times); and “rivetingly readable” (Richmond Times-Dispatch). But this time, he’s got something quite special in store.
A widow comes home to her large house in a wealthy, exclusive suburb to find blood everywhere, no body—and her collegeaged daughter missing. She’s always known that her daughter ran with a bad bunch. What did she call them—Goths? Freaks is more like it, running around with all that makeup and black clothing, listening to that awful music, so attracted to death. And now this.
But the police can’t find the girl, alive or dead, and when a second Goth is found slashed to death in Minneapolis, the widow truly panics. There’s someone she knows, a surgeon named Weather Davenport, whose husband is a big deal with the police, and she implores Weather to get him directly involved. Lucas begins to investigate only reluctantly—but then when a third Goth is slashed in what is now looking like a Jackthe- Ripper series of killings, he starts working it hard. The clues don’t seem to add up, though. And then there’s the young Goth who keeps appearing and disappearing: Who is she? Where does she come from and, more important, where does she vanish to? And why does Lucas keep getting the sneaking suspicion that there is something else going on here . . . something very, very bad indeed?
Filled with his brilliant trademark suspense and some of the most interesting characters in thriller fiction, Phantom Prey is further proof that “Sandford is in a class of his own” (The Orlando Sentinel).
Customer Reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: Lucas Davenport at his best! Comment: An excellent John Sandford "Who Dun It", in typical fashion he keeps you guessing to the very end. Sandford humanizes Lucas Davenport to the point you can see him as your next door neighbor. You can almost see him walking up to your front door. Customer Rating: Summary: A good read but I've read better in the Prey-series Comment: This latest John Sandford Prey mystery is a fine enough read. Speaking in stars, where 5 is the most, this is a small 3 star read. I have read previous Prey mysteries which were way better, but this is not to say that Phantom Prey is bad. Not at all. But seems to me like Sandford is getting just a little tired of writing about Lucas Davenport and the BCA and the Minneapolis police. I don't know.
A wealthy, young Goth-girl has disappeared, leaving only a splatter of blood behind her in her mother's house. There is no body and no sign of forced entry and her mother, the very wealthy health-club owner and widow Alyssa Austin seeks out the help of Lucas Davenport after the regular police has given up finding her daughter (the daughter's body, should she be dead). Lucas is not crazy about taking on this case, but his wife Weather, who is friends with Alyssa Austin, has manages to convince him to give the case a look. Lucas discovers that the young girl was hanging out with a Goth-crowd and when the members of this crowd begin mentioning a mysterious fairy-girl who keeps disappearing, he gets seriously interested in the case, and pretty soon he is in serious danger himself. When more dead Goths begin turning up, Lucas has to speed up his investigations and look into clues that keeps pointing him in different directions.
The reader is told who the killer is halfway through the book and that did bother me a bit. Usually I do not mind being told this, some books tell you who the killer is from page one and still it can be a great mystery. But in this case I don't think it really was an advantage to know that much. All in all I can recommend this one as a light and entertaining read, but if you haven't read any of the Prey-series yet, begin with the first ones. They are better. This one can easily stand alone though.
Customer Rating: Summary: Masterful jewel Comment: Sandford has his hero, Lucas Davenport, currently of the MN Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, musing early that life is just chaotic, happenings that save, or take, lives. Weather, his wife and a medical doctor, believes in cause-and-effect. After a bloodily murderous story, Davenport convincingly restates his position, but in fact Sandford, the author, belies it by crafting a scintillating book that blinds one to the incredibly finely ordered plot lines.
This is a jewel of a book. It contains so artfully crafted a plot and set of characters you only see all the facets after the last chapter, looking back in awe at the smooth and so deceptive flow of words. There are Goths, domestics, big and little drug dealers, snitches, farmers, little old ladies, b---hy ladies, stage and sex actors, ghosts, webmasters, sheriffs, cops, SWAT, athletes...all converging to a bang-up conclusion. At least three, or four, or maybe six different cases are actually going on, of which we see only flashes for many chapters, look-ins on little scenes--until the lights start going on in your head as the intersecting, overlapping crimes and odd happenings begin to sort themselves out. This has got to be the way police really work, numerous cases in varied states of development involving shifting sets of officers. Lucas is in the dark more than the reader, after Sandford reveals the seemingly central killers while yet only half way into his story. So we know, but Davenport doesn't--little good though it does us in recognizing all the other facets of fire and danger that await.
I don't know how Sandford can produce this now-long series, but he just never flags, constantly inventing (discovering?) new ways of criminality and fractured personalities. I enjoyed reading this one so much more than the pathological last one; here the perps are solely sociopaths. It was also fun to see him keep so many threads going inside one novel. Customer Rating: Summary: Don't start with this book Comment: If you are just starting to read the Davenport series please don't start with this book or you will probably be turned away. This is not his best work by far, but still fun if you are already a fan. If this would have been my first Sandford novel I don't think I would have read any more, that being said this is about my 18th, so I do enjoy his work. Just do yourself a favor and don't let this be your first foray into the Davenport series. Customer Rating: Summary: Phantom Prey Comment: Not up to John Sandford's usual excellent writing. This is the only one of the Lucas Davenport books that I could have skipped. Very disappointing.
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