Sandford's sixth thriller – including two under his real name of John Camp – since July 1989. It's no surprise, then, that this fourth in his bestselling Prey series shows some stretch and strain, bringing cop-hero Lucas Davenport away from Minneapolis to Manhattan to tangle again with the homicidal maniac of Eyes of Prey (1991). But it's not just drug-crazed pathologist Michael Bekker – infamous for cutting out his victims' eyelids as he torture-kills them to capture the moment of transition from life to death – that tests Davenport here. Weeks after Bekker escapes from a Minneapolis courthouse in the novel's fierce kickoff, Davenport is visited by old flame Lily Rothenberg of the NYPD (Shadow Prey). Not only is Bekker running amok in N.Y.C., Lily says, but so is a cabal of vigilante cops who've killed perhaps dozens of the Big Apple's most vicious worms. Will Davenport help snare Bekker and at the same time secretly sniff out the bad cops? Davenport's exploration of Gotham's mean streets dramatically points up the metropolis as an inferno of the damned – dealers, fences, junkies – as seen by a small-city cop; but Davenport himself seems less the appealingly brooding, game-playing genius of previous novels than a devious bully with a penchant for extralegal tactics, including intimidation and burglary. Meanwhile, Bekker pops pills and reaps victims under Davenport's nose until a major twist reveals why the killer remains invisible. As Davenport closes in, he also finds himself looking hard at friends old and new as possible vigilantes: Lily, her cop-lover, another top cop, and Davenport's own new bedmate, a feisty "cowgirl" cop named Barb Fell. The two cases close out in predictable but tense climaxes fraught with poetic justice. Solid cop-action with well-drawn minor characters, but lacking the high cleverness or suspense of some earlier Preys. And recycled villain Bekker is no Hannibal Lecter.

This streamlined thriller is a rematch for Minneapolis homicide cop Lucas Davenport and the insane killer he caught in Sandford's earlier slasher novel, Eyes of Prey. After psychotic pathologist Dr. Mike Bekker escapes from a New York courthouse and begins a killing spree, NYPD Lt. Lily Rothenberg asks Davenport, her former lover, to come to Manhattan and help the investigation. Despite Bekker's ruined face (courtesy of an enraged Davenport), the killer eludes capture and the bodies keep piling up, each with the eyelids cut off so that Bekker could photograph his victims as they died. Rothenberg gives Davenport an additional, undercover assignment – to ferret out the "Robin Hoods," a clandestine police vigilante group responsible for perhaps three dozen deaths, one of which was that of a fellow cop who might have been onto them. Paired with possible Robin Hood Det. Barbara Fell, Davenport taunts Bekker in the media, hoping to goad him into a mistake, but the grisly murders continue. As the momentum gathers, readers will speed through the surprise twists and confrontations of the last chapters. Although the story never drags and Sandford delivers his usual punch, the devices in his winning formula are becoming familiar.