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 The Prey Series Mortal Prey The Kidd Series Other Novels Etcetera | Mortal Prey Book Street USA May 1, 2002 Suspense writer John Sanford has written yet another twisty
thriller, this time involving the St. Louis mob and the smart, sexy, and
no-nonsense hitwoman Clara Rinker. When the FBI and DEA enlist Lucas Davenport
to help them track Rinker, he must face his old enemy, and the chase brims with
perilous surprises. In the middle of wedding preparations with his pregnant
fiancée, Davenport feels almost relieved to take a break and step back
into the hunt. Rinker herself is fueled with especially deadly energy since her
Mexican boyfriend was killed by sniper fire that Rinker knows was meant for
her. Even more fiercely provocative is the fact that at the same time her
boyfriend was brought down, a grazing bullet caused her to lose the baby she
was carrying, and Rinker has no doubt that her old mob bosses ordered the
hit. Sanford excels at creating unexpected circumstances in which
his characters must respond with speed and wit. As Rinker begins moving down
her list of old bosses, nailing the first two practically under Davenport's
very nose, the novel really begins to crackle. Sanford also brings in a bit of
high technology to the business of murder with explosive cell phones at the
center. Rinker's ploy with the phones seems not only ingenious, but also
frighteningly possible. Sanford's wink at contemporary culture, with its
addiction to the cell phone, comes off as wickedly apt. But Rinker has an
arsenal of tricks up her sleeve, and so the reader doesn't get numbed by
repetition. We are always waiting to see what the woman will think of
next. Despite her capacity for cold-blooded murder, Rinker can also
display strong feelings of loyalty and affection, most notably towards her
younger brother, Gene, whom the police have in custody on a drug charge. Rinker
immediately grasps that Gene is being held as a bargaining chip to bring her
in, and she does her best to loosen the authorities' grip, telling them that,
if anything happens to her brother, the "blood is on their hands." While most of the novel moves swiftly, the action seems to
briefly flag in the middle, as Rinker plans her next murders, and Davenport
peddles fast – but maybe just a bit too predictable – to catch up
with her. Fortunately, Sanford soon tightens the cord again, recovering his
tautness for the tale's stunning conclusion. Booklist April 1, 2002 by Wes Lukowsky Minneapolis Deputy Police Commissioner Lucas Davenport is
preparing for the next stage of his life. He's finally set a wedding date with
his soul mate, Weather. Their new house is under construction, and Lucas loves
fussing with the details and schmoozing with the workers. He will soon be out
as Deputy Commissioner, because his position is political appointment, and the
city administration will change. But as he looks to the future, dark clouds are
gathering at his back with the reemergence of world-class assassin Clara
Rinker, an old nemesis. Rinker is settled into retirement in Mexico with the
son of a drug lord. When the son is killed, the family assumes it was the work
of a competitor, but Rinker knows her husband wasn't the target – she was.
She also knows who wants her dead and why. She abandons her life south of the
border and heads to St. Louis, her old base of operations. As her revenge
agenda gathers momentum, the bodies accumulate. Davenport is drafted into the
law enforcement response because of his past history with her. The thirteenth
Prey novel is among the most ambitious. Sandford integrates the
mundane domesticity of Davenport's life – wedding invitations, gown
selection – with the terror of a circling killer. More significant is his
portrayal of the symbiotic relationship between great cops and great criminals:
neither could exist without the other because there would be no standard
against which to judge their accomplishments. Davenport and Rinker may not be
the equal of Holmes and Moriarity but certainly belong in the family
portrait. Kirkus Reviews March 1, 2002 Professional hit-woman Clara Rinker returns for another shot
at Lucas Davenport as the brilliant Prey series reaches 13 with nary a
sign of dross on its gloss. What Sandford does as well if not better than any other crime
fiction writer is make good villains. Though his Clara Rinker kills for money,
he puts so human a face on her it requires an act of will to resist her appeal.
We meet her first as victim (shrewd Sandford), ambushed, gunned down in cold
blood. Fatally wounded in the same ambush is her lover, the man whose child she
was carrying. Since Paulo was the son of a notorious Mexican crime family,
conventional wisdom names him as the mark. During her long convalescence,
however, Clara has a chance to rethink that. Back in St. Louis, where she made
her world-class reputation, there are five powerful men who regularly hired her
gun and who might have begun to worry about how deeply she was clued into their
various nefarious operations. She decides they've formed a cabal against her
and that it's time to become proactive. At this point, enter series hero Lucas
Davenport (Chosen Prey, 2001, etc.), one of
the few ever to survive a one-on-one with Clara (Certain Prey, 1999). In his day job, Lucas is
Minneapolis's Deputy Police Chief, but the FBI drafts him for an all-out war.
Like the talented guerilla she is, Clara strikes with elegant ferocity, taking
out her targets as planned, staying an infuriating step ahead of all her
adversaries, including Lucas. But Lucas scares her. While she likes and
respects him, she knows there's no safety for her until she kills him. Which
parallels precisely the way Lucas feels about her. Vivid cast, bristling action, neat surprises –
and it's funny. probably the cop novel of the year. Minneapolis Star-Tribune May 12, 2002 John Sandford's unbroken string of best-selling detective
novels proves that he knows the formula. Get off to a quick, dramatic start.
Draw a line between the good guys and the bad. Then force the two together in a
final bloodbath where evil dies a miserable death so readers can rest
easy. Just like the best writers in this genre – Dashiell
Hammett, Elmore Leonard, Ed McBain among them – Sandford evokes his
netherworld with authentic-sounding dialogue and meticulous details. So
Sandford's decision to set his 13th Prey novel completely outside of
his home base in Minnesota might surprise some fans. Mortal Prey is another in the series built around
Minneapolis supercop Lucas Davenport. But this time, Sandford takes readers to
Cozumel, Mexico, and on to the decaying brick neighborhoods of St. Louis. I was skeptical that Sandford could pull it off. And when he
slipped on a minor detail early in the book – putting a twist-off cap on a
Corona beer – I thought he'd blow the rest of it too. I have traveled widely in Mexico and lived for seven years in
St. Louis, where I covered enough murders and trials for the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch to know the city's underbelly. This was my old stomping grounds,
and I feared that Sandford would come off like a tourist. I was wrong. With
tiny exceptions, Mortal Prey shows off Sandford's fine eye for
detail. The novel starts with a bang in Mexico, when a hit man hired
by a St. Louis mobster mistakingly kills the son of a Mexican drug lord and
wounds his pregnant lover, Clara Rinker. Fans will remember her as the assassin
in Certain Prey, published in 1999. Rinker's fetus dies from the wounds she suffers, but she
survives to seek revenge. The FBI calls in Davenport because he nearly nabbed
Rinker once before. Davenport gets his hands on Rinker's FBI file, a device
Sandford uses to explain the forces that turned Rinker from a smart farm girl
into one of the FBI's most-wanted killers. Suffice to say that she grew up dirt poor and was abused
repeatedly by her alcoholic stepfather. By the time Rinker runs away at age 14,
Sandford has us feeling sorry for her. But Rinker is nobody's patsy. Authorities suspect that after
her stepfather beat up her mom one too many times, Rinker returned to kill him.
His body was never found. Sandford successfully draws two other subplots to heighten the
dramatic tension. He lines up Davenport with some street-smart former St. Louis
cops, and contrasts them with slick, computer-smart FBI agents who can't seem
to do much of anything right. Here's where Sandford shows his mastery. He keeps readers
interested in the FBI agents by describing a bumbling romantic interest between
two agents who can't quite bring themselves together. This device keeps them
from becoming caricatures. Meanwhile, Rinker hooks up with an old girlfriend who has been
living a menial existence under an alias in St. Louis since she killed her
abusive husband years earlier. Rinker had helped her friend escape prosecution,
and she repays Rinker by providing a safe house. Sandford knows how to make readers sympathize with these
women, each of whom suffered terribly at the hands of men. He shows them as
strong but permanently scarred figures struggling to regain their sense of
well-being. At times, even Davenport seems to be pulling for Rinker to escape
the clutches of the law and her abusive past. But Sandford – like Davenport – is a realist. He
knows that people are bound by their past experiences and choices: Rinker chose
the dark side, Davenport the light. Sandford's great triumph in Mortal
Prey comes when he temporarily blurs the line between the two, challenging
the reader with ambiguity. Whether you rest easy or not is up to you. New York Daily News May 18, 2002 In Mortal Prey, the 13th title in John Sandford's
thriller series, aging Minneapolis deputy police chief Lucas Davenport comes
face to face with his longtime nemesis, hit woman Clara Rinker. When her lover
(the son of a Mexican drug lord) is killed and she loses their unborn child in
an ambush in Cancun, Clara comes out of retirement for revenge. Clara soon
figures out that the attack was meant for her – not her boyfriend –
and that it was arranged by past associates in the St. Louis mob. Meanwhile,
the FBI and DEA enlist Davenport's help in tracking down the elusive assassin.
Despite an earlier near-deadly encounter with the cold-blooded killer in Certain Prey, Lucas respects her skills –
and even has sympathy for what she has gone through. But that soon wanes as the
trail of corpses grows. But Clara, for all her cunning and skill, might be
wielding her fiery .22 for the last time. A startling tale, Mortal Prey
brings to life the complex workings and inner psychology of high-priced
killing. Orlando Sentinel June 3, 2002 Clara Rinker is one of the few villains to match wits with
Minneapolis Deputy Police Chief Lucas Davenport and live to tell the tale.
After the two clashed in Certain Prey, it was
pretty much in the cards that John Sandford wouldn't just allow the wicked but
likable Clara to just fade away. Which is good news for Prey fans. Mortal Prey
is classic Sandford, packed with thrills and kills as Clara tries to take
revenge on the men she blames for a botched attempt on her life that left her
Mexican lover dead. As Clara leaves her Mexican hideaway and heads back to her old
Midwest stomping grounds, the FBI asks Davenport for help in outwitting the hit
woman. Clara is certain that the heads of a St. Louis crime syndicate
she used to work for are behind the order to kill her. Ingenious and ruthless,
she carefully plots each step in a series of clever kills that lead her ever
closer to the man who ordered her death. Meanwhile, Davenport, about to be
married to the very pregnant Weather, is torn between finding Clara and
overseeing the construction of his new home. As the bodies mount, the hunt for Clara intensifies.
Davenport, not adverse to killing, is drawn to Clara, whom he met when she ran
a Wichita bar in between hits. Sandford has created a very satisfying, multilayered character
in Clara. Forced to fend for herself since the age of 14, Clara gives no
quarter and expects none in the return. Mortal Prey is one of the best
Davenport thrillers to date – not a mean achievement when you consider
Sandford's string of best sellers. People June 10, 2002 The 13th of Sandford's Prey novels featuring
Minneapolis Deputy police chief and fashion plate Lucas Davenport finds him
giving chase to Clara Rinker, a professional hit woman he met in 1999's Certain Prey. In Mexico, her unborn baby and her
boyfriend, the son of a drug lord, are killed, and she is wounded in what she
believes is a botched hit commissioned by mobsters. One order of revenge,
coming right up. Slick and sleek and feasting on some moldering prey of her own
– the excuse she was abused as a girl – Rinker is the most involving
character here; readers will cheer her on, and even Davenport seems to like her
as he and the FBI close in and she merrily picks off Mob targets. Sandford writes fluently and with some flashes of wit: A
female FBI agent calls her hard-hat boyfriend "dumb as a bowl of mice." This
police procedural is masterfully paced, absorbing and mega-implausibilities
included, a model of the genre. Unfortunately, Sandford cheats readers by
following a nifty 340-age chase with a hasty, forced 14-page afterthought of an
ending. St. Louis Post-Dispatch May 22, 2002 Here's your top-choice summer thriller, a tripleheader police
procedural that features a dandy plot, a sardonic cop, and a St. Louis
setting. Mortal Prey is the latest in a long line of John
Sandford's Prey novels. I hadn't had the pleasure of his company until
now, and I've apparently missed some uncommonly entertaining books. Mortal Prey reintroduces Minneapolis cop Lucas
Davenport – and his old nemesis, Clara Rinker, hit-woman without parallel.
This time around, Rinker gets a grudge against her former bosses, the organized
crime chieftains in St. Louis. When she starts bumping them off one at a time
– and in truly imaginative ways – the FBI calls in Davenport to
help. Part of the book amounts to police comedy, with the
street-smart Davenport pulling end runs on the FBI and making them look pompous
and foolish. But mostly, Mortal Prey is a dead-serious and well-detailed
account of how a smart and inventive killer can drop her targets, even when the
police know who's on her list. The St. Louis setting makes the book especially interesting.
Sandford seems to have sniffed around the metro area well enough to have a good
feel for it. He places one of his murders at Spirt of St. Louis Airport and
another at Shaw's Garden, with side trips for plot developments through Soulard
and Laclede's Landing. And guess what? Sanford makes St. Louis sound like an
interesting, attractive place. At one point, his Davenport muses, "I could get
used to this place. St. Louis. Except it's so (bleeping) hot." Well, we think so, too. The State May 26, 2002 "Cherchez la femme!" That used to be the battle cry of French detectives –
perhaps they still do it – at the occurrence of a homicide: "Look for the
woman!" or better yet, "Find the female." Not particularly politically correct, but then who can expect
p.c. from the country that gave use the guillotine, Napoleon, and
escargot? No one can expect p.c. from Minneapolis police detective Lucas
Davenport, star attraction in this 14th entry in the Prey series
created by John Sandford, nom de plume of Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter John
Camp. This latest Prey novel, however, could be retitled
"Cherchez la Femme," as it works quite well with the woman in question being
someone who almost killed Lucas in an earlier outing. A former hit man for mobsters in St.Louis, she has stumbled on
her first taste of tranquility in Cancun. Her happiness disintegrates, however,
when her lover is gunned down outside a cafe. She's hit too, thereby losing the
child she's carrying, sired by her murdered paramour. Because his gangster daddy lords it over the area, everyone
assumes her lover was targeted, but she secretly realizes that she knows too
much and was the intended victim. So it's back to St. Louis to pick off all the mobsters who
have had a hand in killing her lover and her unborn child. The feds swarm in,
summoning Lucas because he has a handle on the sharpshooter dame. And thus
begins a thrilling game of cat and mouse, with the lady assassin staying one
move ahead of her pursuers. Sandford builds her into a complex character who attracts at
least some of the reader's sympathies. The daughter of a mentally unbalanced
woman, the criminal protagonist was sexually abused by her stepfather and
brother before escaping her podunk Missouri hometown at age 14. One character
observes, "I know what happened to poor Clara when she was just a girl, and it
doesn't seem strange to me at all that she's grown up to kill people." Sandford keeps the excitement flowing like Bordeaux on
Bastille Day, with several tasty twists toward the end plus plenty of dry
humor, especially in the dialogue. For instance, when an FBI agent gives Lucas
a choice between reading the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times: "You
want the Fascists or the Commies?" Mortal Prey finds Sandford in prime form, with the
author jumping the gun on the summer thriller trade with something that's sure
to please the reader, whether one is headed for France or just for French
fries. Washington Post May 5, 2002 At the start of Mortal Prey, the 13th installment of
John Sandford's bestselling Prey series, Minneapolis Deputy Police
Chief Lucas Davenport is about to marry his longtime and now pregnant
sweetheart and move in with her into their dream house. But trouble is brewing
down in Cancun, where Davenport's old antagonist, the professional killer Clara
Rinker, is also pursuing happiness. After the two clashed a few books back,
Rinker fled to Mexico, where she fell in love with the handsome son of a drug
lord. One day, as the pregnant Clara and her lover emerge from a restaurant, a
sniper fires at her, wounding her but killing him and their unborn child. As soon as she can travel, a vengeful Clara heads for St.Louis
to eradicate the former colleagues she blames for the attack. Davenport is
summoned to aid in the search for her. The FBI is on hand, too, but its agents
mostly write memos and hold PowerPoint presentations while Davenport pounds the
pavement. Relentless Clara picks off her enemies, one by one; then, inevitably,
she comes after Davenport and his bride-to-be. Sandford (the pseudonym of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
John Camp) does just about everything right in this suspenseful tale, but
perhaps his biggest achievement is to make Clara an oddly sympathetic
character. If you haven't yet sampled the Prey series, this is an
excellent place to start. |
13 April 2008  The Prey series, the Kidd series, The
Night Crew, Dead Watch, Dark of the Moon, The Eye and the
Heart: The Watercolors of John Stuart Ingle, and Plastic Surgery: The
Kindest Cut are copyrighted by John Sandford. All excerpts are used with
permission. All original content on the website (excluding the message
board and some other specifically disclaimed text) is copyright © 2007 by
Roswell Anthony Camp. Please do not steal anything from these pages. If you
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