Bloody Genius

August 1, 2019
Virgil Flowers' 12th appearance takes him into the homicidal heart of the University of Minnesota. When a professor's as brainy and wealthy as Barthelemy Quill, a nerve specialist who drives a BMW, you have to make some allowances for him. That's presumably why his unnamed female companion agrees to let him sneak her into his personal carrel at midnight, hours after the university library has closed. But neither of them is prepared to find the dark carrel already occupied by another anonymous figure who, far from making allowances, reacts to Quill's sputtering outrage by bashing him to death with his state-of-the-art laptop and running off with the murder weapon. Pressed by Quill's equally rich sister to get faster results than Sgt. Margaret Trane of the Minneapolis PD has come up with, the governor gets the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to send Virgil (Holy Ghost, 2018, etc.) to help out. Trane doesn't want his help, but she's won over by his determination to avoid taking the credit for any new leads and his success in finding a lead almost immediately: a hair on the yoga mat in Quill's carrel that didn't come from anybody's head. Spurred on by the discovery, Trane comes up with a lead of her own: a hidden recording in which three men, one of them probably Quill, discuss a highly questionable medical procedure. Now, instead of too few leads, there are too many. Was Quill murdered by Ruth McDonald, whose quadriplegic husband killed himself after just such a procedure? By Quill's own estranged third wife, in search of a bigger payoff than her prenup allowed? By professor Katherine Green, whose Cultural Science approach to medications he'd claimed had given fuel to rabid anti-vaxxers? By Boyd Nash, a sociopathic patent troll who's made a specialty of taking credit for other people's discoveries and accepting payoffs to go away quietly? Or by another suspect for still another reason Virgil and Trane can't yet imagine? Steadily absorbing revelations of all manner of malfeasance, beautifully handled, even if the final twist is less than the best.

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August 12, 2019
Bestseller Sandford’s compulsively readable 12th novel featuring astute Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent Virgil Flowers (after 2018’s Holy Ghost) will please fair play fans. Thanks to some string-pulling, Flowers gets assigned to assist the Minneapolis PD with the investigation of a homicide at the University of Minnesota that has stalled two weeks after the crime. Someone bashed in the head of Barthelemy Quill with a laptop in the university library in the middle of the night; Quill, a professor who worked in a lab specializing in spinal injuries, was in the midst of a romantic rendezvous at the time. The dead man’s sister, a major political campaign donor, prevailed on the governor to add resources to the case, a decision not welcomed by the veteran police detective in charge. Flowers finds no shortage of suspects, including a map thief and an academic rival whose theories were denounced as bunk by Quill during one of her lectures. Readers who like a bit of unrepentant wiseass in their sleuths will find Flowers fits the bill. Sandford makes blending humor and mystery look easy. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM.

Starred review from September 15, 2019
Virgil Flowers is an agent for Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Suspects and witnesses underestimate him because of his longish hair, propensity for rock-band T-shirts, and laid-back demeanor. A prominent medical doctor and researcher at the University of Minnesota is murdered in a study carrel in the university library. Barthelemy Quill was a multiple divorc�e and the son of a prominent, wealthy family. His department was involved in an academic turf war, and, as Virgil comes to understand, there are few as ruthless as academic bureaucrats. But murder? The wealthy Quill family exerts its power over the governor when local law enforcement doesn't make progress on the case, prompting Virgil's involvement. Examining the crime scene, he finds evidence that there was probably a sexual encounter in the study carrel. Why there? That's the first thread Virgil tugs. Then there's the project on which Quill was working, in competition with a rival medical researcher. Or does the motive lie in something far more mundane? Flowers remains one of the great modern fictional detectives, and Sandford, as always, supplies amazing secondary characters, sharp dialogue, and plots that confound and amaze. A near-perfect crime novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Starred review from October 1, 2019

After Professor Quill's body is found in his library carrel at the University of Minnesota, the local police are stumped. Two weeks later, Dr. Quill's well-connected, wealthy sister calls the governor. Virgil Flowers from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) is assigned to assist the Minneapolis police. He teams with Sgt. Maggie Trane to put the pieces together in a case that seems to have no connecting links. Is it a former student, a former patient, someone with a grudge? There are too many suspects and numerous angles in this fast-paced, intensifying adventure. As always, the investigation is intricately plotted, while details of Flowers's family life are included for fans of the character. VERDICT Sandford's readers will welcome the 12th book in the best-selling "Virgil Flowers" series, following Holy Ghost. The irreverent humor and language is perfect for the unconventional law officer in the darkly entertaining series. [See Prepub Alert, 4/8/19.]--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2019

Two departments at the local university have carried their heated culture-wars differences too far: someone has ended up dead, and Virgil Flowers gets the call. But he's never met such crazy people.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.