Heat Lightning

Sometimes it seems like Virgil Flowers's biggest decision is which T-shirt to put on to confound or irritate the people he meets. Though he may look like a Woodstock throwback, Flowers is a top-notch investigator who's been spun off from Sandford's Lucas Davenport series. In this second outing, Flowers is investigating a perplexing series of torture murders that end with the victim's mouth being stuffed with a lemon wedge. Eric Conger's laid-back depiction of Flowers makes him seem like a modern-day Bret Maverick. Seemingly without effort, he always manages to do the right thing. Conger's tempo keeps the listener in suspense right up to the unorthodox ending--which contains the only appearance of the weather phenomenon for which the book is named. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

August 25, 2008
At the start of bestseller Sandford's solid second thriller to feature officer Virgil Flowers of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (after Dark of the Moon
), a gunman shoots Bobby Sanderson as he's walking his dog one night in Stillwater, Minn., then places a lemon in the dead man's mouth. Sanderson's killing is one in a series, and Flowers soon discovers that all the victims served together in Vietnam. When Flowers learns that Vietnamese firing squads stuck lemons in the mouths of their human targets, he pursues leads in the local immigrant community, where he hooks up with the attractive daughter of a radical professor who'd written a paper about Agent Orange. Eventually, he settles on the owner of a security company involved with the upcoming Republican National Convention as his prime suspect. While the less than credible plot builds to a highly unlikely resolution, most readers will enjoy spending time in the company of the genial Flowers.

October 27, 2008
Sandford follows up Virgil Flowers’s first time in the center spotlight (2007’s Dark of the Moon
) with this captivating mystery. While investigating a brutal murder in suburban Minnesota, Flowers discovers the killing is part of a series of murders of Vietnam veterans who all served together. Eric Conger’s gritty reading is perfectly suited to Sandford’s literary world. His voice is at once serious and invigorating, drawing listeners into the story and setting loose the all-out anarchy that Sandford meticulously crafts throughout. Conger refreshingly underplays Flowers, opting to steer clear of stereotypes and offers a character so real and flawed that he creates an instant connection with listeners. A Putnam hardcover (Reviews, Aug. 25).