Ocean Prey

March 15, 2021
No oceans in Minnesota, you say? That won't stop Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers, who are clearly determined to burn through their bucket list on the federal government's dime. The murders of three Coast Guard officers chasing a suspicious boat in Florida waters by crooks who set fire to the boat moments after abandoning it send shock waves through the DEA, the FBI, and eventually the U.S. Marshals Service. In short order Lucas and his colleague and pal Bob Matees find themselves on a task force Florida Sen. Christopher Colles convenes to find the drugs the fugitives managed to dump into the Atlantic before they shot their pursuers and arrest everyone in sight. The duo's modus operandi seems to be to talk to everyone who's seen anything, and then talk to everyone they've mentioned, and so on, taking regular breaks to drink, reminisce, and swap wisecracks. Everything is so relaxed and routine that fans of this long-running series will just know that Sandford has something more up his sleeve, and he does. Eventually the task force's net widens to make room for Virgil, who, working with Marshal Rae Givens, hires himself out to the criminals as a diver who can retrieve those drugs while Lucas and his allies work their way higher and higher up the food chain of baddies. The cast is enormous and mostly forgettable, but Sandford manages to work up a full head of steam when Lucas realizes that his scorched-earth tactics have put Virgil and Rae in serious danger. Sprawling and only intermittently suspenseful till that last act: below average for this distinguished series.

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March 15, 2021
Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers are working together again in book 31 of the Prey series (following Masked Prey, 2020), and somehow the pairing never gets old. They are like Butch and Sundance, with badges. Sandford's ability to create totally engaging characters, along with what many critics call his "compulsively readable prose," remains undiminished. This time, after three coastguardsmen are shot dead in Florida, the locals call in Lucas, who in turn enlists Virgil and U.S. Marshal Rae Givens. The reader gets an all-inclusive tour of Miami, where every manner of low life seems to flourish. Lucas does the house-to-house while Virgil and Rae infiltrate the drug-smuggling mob suspected of the killings. The ending serves to enhance Virgil's legendary status in law-enforcement circles, while Rae walks off with a pair of pricey Tom Ford stiletto sandals, and Lucas, on the mend from a cockatoo attack, learns about some new thing called COVID-19 from his physician wife. It will be interesting to see where Sandford goes with that.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.