Holy Ghost by John Sandford

Holy Ghost: A Virgil Flowers Novel by John Sandford --- 373 pages

John Sandford’s Virgil Flowers novels are a spinoff from his  better known Prey thrillers starring Lucas Davenport. Virgil is a field investigator for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, who prefers to operate in the small towns and open countryside of  rural Minnesota, where he can bring his boat along for a little fishing on the side, and find interesting stories for his other, part-time job as a free lance writer for outdoors and hunting magazines.  This is number 11 in the Flowers series and it has all the trademark humor mixed in with the details of criminal investigation that distinguish Sandford's style.

Wheatfield, Minnesota was  drifting inexorably into oblivion until the Virgin Mary suddenly manifested herself before a congregation of elderly parishioners and Mexican migrant workers at the local Catholic church. Overnight it seems the town is inundated with pilgrims hoping to witness the miracle for themselves. The apparitions jump start Wheatfield's economy and many of the local inhabitants are happy to share in the profits --- especially the mayor and his precocious teenage sidekick, who have opened a store catering to the tourists right across the street from the church, seemingly overnight. Pretty much everyone in town is thrilled with how things are going. Until somebody starts taking potshots at the pilgrims.

When Virgil Flowers arrives and starts stirring the pot, all kinds of things begin rising to the surface. As Virgil soon realizes, nothing in Wheatfield is as simple as it seems.

Click HERE to read the review in Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review in Publishers Weekly.

Deep Freeze by John Sandford

Deep Freeze: A Virgil Flowers Novel by John Sandford --- 391 pages

The tenth novel in Sandford's popular spin-off series featuring Virgil Flowers, an investigator for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Virgil returns to the small town of Trippton, Minnesota where, a few years back, he was sent to investigate a dog-napping ring and not only saved the dogs but uncovered a corrupt and homicidal school board (Deadline - 2014).

Now he's back because Gina Hemming, who inherited control of the town bank from her father, disappeared after hosting a meeting of her high school 25th class reunion committee, and her body turned up a few days later frozen and floating in the icy Mississippi River. But it wasn't the cold that killed her; a blunt instrument whacked against her head was the cause of death.

What makes the book a great read however is not Hemmings' murder --- since the murderer is identified early on, although Virgil only determines the guilty party after eliminating all the other suspects.  What makes the book interesting is the way Sandford, with absolute deadpan humor, incorporates a subplot in which the governor, as a political favor, orders him to help a private investigator from California who is trying to serve a cease and desist order for trademark infringement on a group of local women who are selling Barbie-Oh and Boner-Ken (modified) dolls over the Internet in order to pay their bills and hold on to their homes. Virgil discovers trying to track down the women is far more dangerous than solving the murder --- and not just because he sympathizes with the women.

Sandford writes thrillers like no one else. Smart and funny. If you haven't given him a try I recommend you go back and read the books in order from the start (Dark of the Moon-2007)

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the Washington Post.

Escape Clause by John Sandford

Escape Clause: A Virgil Flowers Novel by John Sandford --- 392 pages

Virgil Flowers started out as a supporting character in Sandford's Prey series of crime thrillers starring Lucas Davenport, lead investigator in the Minnesota Department of Criminal Apprehension.

But Flowers was too intriguing a character in his own right and eventually Sandford spun him off in his own series of crime thrillers.

In this the ninth adventure in the Flowers series, Virgil is in charge of tracking down the miscreants who have stolen two rare Amur tigers from the Minnesota Zoo.  The clock is running, because Virgil quickly realizes the likely reason the tigers were taken is their value as ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine. So he needs to find them before the criminals (literally) put them through the grinder.

Sandford's villains are always interesting, and the villain here is a doozy: Winston Peck VI, a doctor who lost his license to practice because he couldn't keep his hands off his female patients. Peck has reinvented himself as a purveyor of traditional herbal nostrums.  He's popping Xanax like candy and that's not helping his mental processes.  He has two henchmen, the Simonian brothers, plenty of brawn but very little brain, supplied by his very wealthy Chinese backer on the west coast. The backer's angry and alienated son is the go-between for his father and Peck.

Virgil quickly picks up on Peck, but the sociopathic ex-doctor is hard to pin down as he systematically eliminates everyone who could tie him to the crime.  Virgil also has to deal with the rest of the Simonian brotherhood, who arrive in Minneapolis breathing vengeance for the deaths of their brothers, and prepared to preempt the law.

As always Sandford doesn't pull the punches when he describes the crimes committed; but at the same time, he uses the mordant humor of his cops to deal with the gruesome details.

There's also a subplot involving Virgil's now established relationship with Frankie Nobles and her family.  Is it possible that the wily Virgil has met his match at last?

A solid hit in a great series.

Click HERE to read a review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read a review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read a review from the Huffington Post.

Deadline by John Sandford

Deadline: A Virgil Flowers Novel by John Sandford --- 388 pages

John Sandford latest Virgil Flowers police thriller is a really great fun read. There's plenty of action, lots of earthy Midwestern humor, and Sandford juggles three different plot lines and makes it look easy.

Asked to describe the book, Sandford said: "Sort of a dog-napping, meth-chasing, mutiple murder investigation in which most of the bad guys belong to the school board." He confesses that when he worked as a newspaper reporter himself, the assignment he dreaded the most was covering a school board meeting. Having worked briefly as a reporter myself, I can entirely sympathize with him on that.

Click HERE to read an interview with John Sandford.

Click HERE to read a review of Deadline from the New York Times.

Click HERE to read a review by a reporter who also covers school board meetings.

Storm Front by John Sandford

Storm Front: A Virgil Flowers Novel by John Sandford --- 376 pages

This is Sandford's seventh Virgil Flowers novel, a spin off from his best selling Prey series, now 25 books strong and counting. Virgil is a laidback Minnesota good old boy who works as an investigator for Sandford's Lucas Davenport in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in the Prey novels. Virgil being a field agent, has a little looser attitude than his boss Davenport, and the spin off series reflects that.

In this book Sandford says he's poking a little good-natured fun of Dan Brown and similar authors who send their characters into murky labyrinths of worldwide conspiracies in search of centuries-old secret talismans of mystic power.

Click HERE to watch an interview with Sandford where he talks about Dan Brown and Storm Front.

But as it turns out, Sandford started his writing career in journalism, first in the Army and then at newspapers around the Midwest (including a stint at the newspaper in Cape Girardeau MO). He won one Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist for another. He left journalism after his first novel was published, and has made his living as a novelist ever since. He also has an interest in archeology and the Middle East, and has been funding an archeological dig in Israel for some years. Next year there will be a major exhibit of the findings in Jerusalem. So those parts of the book are based on personal experience.

Click HERE to visit Sandford's web site and find out more about the author and his books., including a peek at his new novel Field of Prey featuring Lucas Davenport.

As always Sandford delivers a fast-paced, cleverly plotted story with lots of action, interesting characters, a wry sense of humor and a healthy dose of Midwestern skepticism.

Mad River by John Sandford

Mad River: A Virgil Flowers Novel by John Sandford --- 387 pages

Virgil Flowers first appeared as a supporting character in Sandford's Prey series featuring Lucas Davenport, but soon proved interesting and popular enough in his own right to get his own spin off series of murder mysteries in addition to continuing appearances in the original series.

In this novel, Flowers is sent to assist the sheriff's department in rural Bare County when three bored teenagers with dead end lives and a lot of anger get their hands on some guns and go on a killing spree. The hard part is knowing that sooner or later this is going to end badly, Virgil thinks, and the longer it goes on, the more people will die along the way. He knows the sheriff and his deputies have no intention of taking these kids alive. But Virgil objects to that kind of vigilante justice, so he's made up his mind to bring in the kids himself, make sure they get a trial before they get locked up for the rest of their lives. He manages to get one of them into custody, and that boy tells a very troubling tale that makes  Virgil begin to wonder if maybe somebody just saw some advantage for himself in setting these kids up with guns and pointing them in a particular direction. Maybe at least one of these murders wasn't just random, aimless violence. But the only way he can get proof of what he suspects is if he can get at least one if not both of the other two kids into custody and talking to him. Which appears to be less and less likely to happen.