Erica McDill is the newly ascended CEO of one of the Twin Cities' most prominent ad agencies. She's taken a few days out of her schedule to recharge at an exclusive northern Minnesota resort catering primarily to wealthy women who may be looking for a fling in between nature hikes. Whatever her vacation plans, she doesn't anticipate her own death at the hands of a sniper. Her prominence in the community leads the governor to hand the case to Lucas Davenport and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Davenport assigns the job to his best investigator, Virgil Flowers, whose investigatory technique is textbook but who fosters a reputation for eccentricity with surfer-dude hair and a working uniform of cowboy boots, jeans, and rock-band T-shirts. Virgil has a plethora of motives to sift through. Was McDill's murderer a bitter business rival? An anonymous lover at the resort? Her longtime partner? A couple of days into the investigation, Flowers learns that a former guest of the resort was murdered in Iowa two years earlier. Is there a connection? Best-selling author Sandford seems to be having more fun these days with Flowers than Davenport, the protagonist in the long-running Prey series. And why not? Each of Flowers' cases reveals more quirks, more depth, and a wicked sense of the absurd, as well as an investigator who can be as analytical as Nero Wolfe and as tough as everybody's favorite Boston badass, Spenser. Great entertainment.

Virgil Flowers (u>Heat Lightning, 2008, etc.) emerges from the long shadow of mentor Lucas Davenport to solve the murder of an advertising executive that features some long shadows of its own. Someone had the prowess to kill Erica McDill with a single head shot from 80 yards away as she paddled her canoe outside Eagle Nest Lodge. The footprint that cops found near a shell casing is from an upscale women's brand shoe, but that doesn't do much to narrow the list of suspects: Eagle Nest's clientele is exclusively female. Hauled in from a musky-fishing tournament by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Virgil quickly finds himself up to his armpits in women who prefer the company of other women. Even Eagle Nest accountant Zoe Tull has been smitten by Wendy Ashbach, the country singer who's fronting an all-girl band at the Wild Goose, where she's cast a spell over every female in the house. Maybe that's why Zoe, who's helpful enough to introduce Virgil to her straight (and sex-starved) sister Signy, somehow forgets to mention the strangling of a guest from Iowa two years ago, shortly after she, like McDill, took a businesslike interest in Wendy's band. No matter. However distracted he is by pursuing Sig, repeatedly crossing Zoe off his list of suspects and then penciling her back on, and questioning everyone else in northern Minnesota, Virgil does enough honest detective work to justify focusing his investigation first on the band, then on Wendy's creepy father Slibe and even creepier brother Slibe Jr. Readers may at first share the verdict of Virgil's fishing buddy — "I thought it would be interesting, but it's just nasty" — but following the trail to McDill's killer proves as interesting as hooking and landing a 40-pound musky.

Near the start of bestseller Sandford's winning third thriller to feature Virgil Flowers of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (after Heat Lightning), Virgil gets a call while muskie fishing from his boss, Lucas Davenport (the hero of Sandford's long-running Prey series). Lucas orders Virgil to look into the shooting death of Erica McDill, an ad agency exec from Minneapolis and a big supporter of the Democratic Party, who was staying at the Eagle Nest Lodge in nearby Grand Rapids. A talk with lodge owner Margery Stanhope turns up unusual details: Margery's clientele is mostly lesbian; an all-female rock band is involved; guests who are so inclined can buy young men for an evening's pleasure; and financial reasons could explain the murder. It's a complicated case, but Virgil is up to the task, and, as always, he's funny, smart and tough when he needs to be — and catnip to the ladies.