Mind Prey ·
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Author Introduction ·
Behind the Scenes
John Sandford on Mind Prey
John Mail, the villain in Mind Prey, is a bad, bad man.
Comprehensively, thoroughly, insanely bad. A nightmare.
While none of my characters or stories are based directly on
real-life criminals or crimes, Mind Prey was written with an actual
crime at the back of my head. And guess what — the real criminal was worse
than John Mail.
As a Twin Cities newspaper reporter at the time of the real
crime, I helped with some of the coverage, and was friends with the guys who
did the bulk of it, including the eventual trial of the kidnapper/murderer. The
investigation and trial gave me a good look at the mind of an intelligent, yet
seriously deranged sex criminal, and eventually came to influence a number of
books in the Prey series.
The investigation also gave me an insight into the problems of
investigation — for example, until the truth finally came out, the police
were focused on the wrong man in the crime, a man who was completely innocent,
but had no way to prove it. His tribulations would make a long book in
itself.
And I saw some other human behavior that I came to use in
various books. For another example, when the truth came out, there was no
question that the accused was guilty. The physical evidence, including video
tapes, was overwhelming, and direct, and was backed up by testimony of the
victims themselves. (That they were alive was something of a miracle.)
That much made it into the media immediately, for this was a
sensational crime. When the story broke, I was sent to the bad guy's business
address — he was a small business owner — hoping to talk to
employees, but they wouldn't speak to me.
For one thing, they didn't want to be associated with the
killer.
For another, they'd seen the TV reports, and given the nature
of his crimes and the overwhelming evidence, they knew the killer was never
coming back. Never. And thus, they were far too busy looting the business to
talk to a reporter.
The way of the world, I guess.
Sometime after I finished Mind Prey, I was invited to
give a talk about crime-fiction writing at a medical examiners' convention. As
part of the deal, I got to sit in on the convention, which I did for a while. I
left after an FBI presentation on serial killers because, quite frankly, my
stomach wasn't strong enough to look at the pictures.
I covered the crash of an L1011 airliner in the Everglades,
with arms, legs and heads lying all over the place, saw perhaps a hundred or so
surgeries in doing some occasional medical writing, including double
amputations on accident victims and debridement of burn victims, and saw any
number of shot people waiting for ambulances, without much problem. But what
insane criminals do to people, especially women — that I can't look at, or
write. When I deal with such subjects in the Prey series, I promise you that
the violence is toned down.
Far down.
Mind Prey is the only one of my books to be made into a
movie, a TV movie. It was, as us serious movie critics say, Not Very Good. The
movie starred Eriq La Salle as Lucas Davenport, which has led to some awkward
questions when I've been out signing books.
La Salle is black, and Lucas, in the books, is white. The
question I get — always from white people, as far as I can remember —
is usually like, "What did you think of the casting in Mind Prey?" The
real question, there, is, "How come a black guy is playing Davenport, and what
do you think about that?"
I tell the truth: it didn't bother me at all. I hardly thought
about it. I'd seen LaSalle quite a bit in ER, and was a fan of his.
What makes it difficult is trying to explain that while
LaSalle is fine as Davenport, the movie wasn't any good. That sounds like some
kind of racist tap-dance, sending a signal to the questioner that you
understand their signal about casting... and... you know the rest.
But the problem with the movie — which actually had
pretty decent actors in the cast — is that the production sucked. The
script, the sets, the editing, and so on. Nothing wrong with the actors, but a
bad production drives me crazy.
At one point (this is all from memory, I don't actually own
the movie, as far as I know) one of the characters knocks on a door and
announces, "Minnesota police..."
Like we've only got one police department in Minnesota? I
mean, the Twin Cities — where the movie wasn't filmed — isn't the
biggest metro area in the US, but there are three million people living there.
It ain't Mayberry.
It also looked like they spent upwards of $300 on sets, which
didn't much resemble any police department I've ever been in. The fictional
police department looked like something left over from Barney Miller.
Ah, well. Deep in my soul... I don't care. I'm a
novelist.
Here's a small spoiler, so don't read it if you haven't gone
through the book before. In the end, the young girl in cistern survives. In the
original version of the book, she didn't. That, I have to say, was pretty
bleak, especially the way I played it out, with the mother finding the
girl.
The publisher at the time called me up and said, "Please,
please, let her survive." I took a survey of family and friends, and the
consensus was unanimous and vociferous: you're a complete moron if you don't
let her survive; in fact, you're a complete moron for killing her off in the
first place.
I had to jump through my ass to rearrange things so she lived.
But when it was done, I was pleased, I have to say.
The book no longer makes you want to jump off a bridge.
Which is better than the alternative.
— John Sandford, March 7, 2011