About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

NAKED PREY
by John Sandford
Berkley, April 2004
400 pages
$7.99
ISBN: 0425195449


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

John Sandford's Lucas Davenport PREY series has been consistent over the years and I've relied on it for an interesting reading time, though I have enjoyed some of the novels in the series more than others. While it is not Sandford's fault, I am truly weary of the thriller genre's fascination with young women victims and do not find female child victims any more satisfying.

Nevertheless I keep buying PREY because Minnesota with its vicious climate does remain a great setting for any thriller. In NAKED PREY, however, what kept me going and pleased with the trip was a secondary character rather than tired old Lucas D.

Letty West is a capable adult woman disguised as a precocious child. She is introduced early on as the discoverer of the first bodies and from that point it is her story that caught me and kept me interested. While her character is severely over the top, she remained throughout the novel the main reason I slogged on through an unusually dull story.

Sandford is likely, as are many of us readers, bored with Davenport and his usual secondary folk, but the author certainly spiced up his work and my reading experience with Letty. I hope she's not domesticated easily and shows up in future stories. Weather, sad to say, is tamed now and appears as a Stepford Wife when necessary. Lucas deserves more.

The plot wavers and strange red-herrings and social commentary are dragged across the path, giving the reader unnecessarily wrong impressions of other secondary and tertiary characters and situations. The opening murder scene is unique and draws us in. But the killer becomes a side consideration as the investigation wanders through numerous tangles and trails leading, eventually, to a less than satisfactory conclusion. As a thriller, it's not Sandford's better work. I do, however, recommend it for seasoned PREY readers because of the fun Letty West provides.

Reviewed by Sharon Brondos, July 2004

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]