Books: John Sandford

I am not certain why John Sandford's writing appeals to me but here are four more titles of his books I've read recently:
1. Heat Lightning - late revenge for atrocities by Americans at the end of the Vietnam War.
2. Buried Prey - an old murder case is revived when bodies of two young girls are found.
3. Secret Prey - the CEO and president of the board of a Minnesota bank is murdered on the opening day of deer season.
4. Naked Prey - kidnappings, murder and drug running are the strange brew in this novel.

(I don't particularly like the titles of the "Prey" novels, but then titles are often tricky, I guess...)

These are all books about cops and thus about testosterone, tough guy posturing, profanity, sex, drugs, bad people, car chases, guns and the politics of police work. But if there wasn't nuanced character development in the men and women in Sandford's novels, and especially in the two main characters (Virgil Flowers and Lucas Davenport), I wouldn't keep reading his books. (I did think Secret Prey, written in 1998, was less credible than his other novels as it seemed coarser and less complex..but even so, I finished it.)

The good guys work for the BCA or the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in Minnesota. They are slightly rogue, smart (of course), appeal to woman (of course) and solve murders.

A couple of random excerpts:

"His (Virgil) thoughts all tumbled over each other, and he got nowhere. He cooled out by thinking briefly about God, and considered praying that there wouldn't be another murder and another middle-of-the-night call. He decided that praying wouldn't help, and went to sleep, and dreamed of the fisherwoman with strong brown arms and gold-flecked married eyes."

"Having been disinvited from lunch, Virgil went to an I-94 diner and had a chicken potpie, with roughly a billion calories in chicken fat, which added flavor to the two pounds of salt included with the pie. He cut the salt with three Cokes, and left feeling like the Hindenburg."

"He was back at this apartment in six minutes, and took another thoughtful six minutes to get into a pair of light khaki slacks, a short-sleeve white shirt, and a navy linen sport coat with a wine-colored tie. He hesitated over the short-sleeve shirt, because Esquire magazine despised them, but then, Esquire editors probably didn't have to walk through slum neighborhoods in ninety-degree heat."

There is always just enough non-cop commentary / description / dialogue to make the characters more real and certainly more interesting.

Another reason I like Sandford is that the milieu is usually Minnesota with evocative passages of the northern woods--the cabins and little resorts, small lakes, walleye fishing, long winters, bars in small towns--all a counterpoint to the action in The Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul).