When an Indian-gouging slumlord and an Indian-hating parole officer turn up dead from the same gory M.O. – throats slit by obsidian knives – Minneapolis police figure it's more than coincidental. When, soon after, a New York City welfare commissioner who has urged making short shrift of such permanent deadbeats as Indians is similarly offed, they know something big's going down. Thanks to intelligence unit detective Lucas Davenport, a killer is nailed, but not before Davenport is briefly taken hostage – a situation from which he's saved by Lily Rothenburg, a Big Apple cop also working on the case. Eventually, a conspiracy of Indian radicals is uncovered, Lucas falls for Lily and vice versa, and a wild card in the person of the sociopathic son of the conspiracy's leaders ups the violence by snuffing Lucas' Indian informants. There's enough cooking in Sandford's second Davenport thriller to keep the pages turning, despite some overly cute metaphors and the fact that the wild-card killer (who's named Shadow Love, hence the book's title) seems extraneous to a plot that's interesting and crowded enough already.

A crackling sequel to Sandford's ingenious Rules of Prey (1989), in which Minneapolis homicide cop Lucas Davenport made his memorable debut tracking a serial killer. Here, Sandford (who last year under his real name of John Camp also published the fine seriocomic thriller The Fool's Run) pits Davenport against a murderous Indian cabal. The sly, convoluted plotting of Rules of Prey, predicated on Davenport's mastery at games (he's wealthy from inventing several computer games), takes back seat here to vigorous erotic and violent action, beginning with the opening flashback that sees racist young cop Lawrence Clay raping an Indian girl. Today, Clay is director of the FBI and is the ultimate target of vengeance by the aging, radical Crow brothers, who plan to draw him to Minneapolis by orchestrating a series of ritual killings by Indians of white enemies – a slumlord, a sadistic parole officer. Before Clay blusters on the scene, though, Davenport takes the case, partnered with gorgeous, married Lily Rothenberg – a cop from Manhattan (where one of the graphically detailed killings occurs) whose sexual tango with Davenport offers steamy relief from the icepick chills of their pursuit of the Crows. Davenport's dogged hunt through the shuttered alleys of Minneapolis' Indian slums eventually lands him, in an excruciatingly tense scene, as hostage at the wrong end of a shotgun; soon after Davenport escapes, Lily is gunned down by the Crows' psychotic young protégé, Shadow Love. The final 50 pages fly by as the Crows at last trap and blast Clay, and Davenport faces down Shadow Love in a bloody stalk-and-shoot in a cellar. Less brainy but more muscular than Sandford's first two: a double-pumped roundhouse of a thriller.

A terrorist conspiracy, masterminded by a small group of Native Americans, embarks on a series of ritualistic murders, offing public officials known for their record of prejudice against Indians, in Sandford's (Rules of Prey) second Lucas Davenport thriller. Dakota medicine men Sam and Aaron Crow recruit killers whom they arm with obsidian knives on leather thongs and send out to cut the throats of victims in Minnesota, Oklahoma and New York – for starters. Both Sam and Aaron act as fathers to young Shadow Love (since each has been his mother's lover); Shadow Love is, in fact, a psychopath who will use the Indian murder mission to fulfill his own agenda. When Minneapolis police lieutenant Davenport gets on the case, assisted by statuesque, tough-talking policewoman Lily Rothenburg, the "sulky, dark-haired madonna" dispatched from New York to observe the investigation, the story crackles with romance and suspense, especially when Lucas and Lily become the killers' prey. Lucas's personality is the novel's most nuanced: he is a rugged lover of women – including his old friend Elle, psychologist and Sister of Mercy – he fathers his live-in girlfriend's baby and spends nights inventing board games. Other characters, like Sandford's dialogue, are only serviceable, but plenty of gore and action drives the plot forward.