Tangled Web UK Review April 2003
Mortal Prey by
John Sandford
pbk out February 03
(Simon Schuster)
at £10
Lucas Davenport, Sandford's excellent series cop, seems against all the odds to be
settling into domesticity. He is having a house built, and as his fiancée Dr. Weather
Karkinnen is pregnant Lucas is planning which room shall be the child's. His career future
too seems to be mapped out, as some local government shifts and slides give him a new
post.
But meanwhile down in Mexico his adversary of old, hitwoman Clara Rinker, is about to
unleash a one-woman murder spree. In a curious parallel she too has succumbed to a
surge of domestic bliss: she too is engaged and pregnant, and with a new name and
background and a conventional job seems set for the future. Then, when an assassination
attempt kills her fiancé and their unborn child, Clara knows that she, rather than her fiancé
(the son of a local drug baron), was the intended target. She knows, too, who has ordered
this hit, and even as she is recovering from her injuries she begins the careful planning of
her revenge. As soon as she is able, she starts calling in old favours and gradually works
her way towards St. Louis and the 4 ex-clients who, she is sure, have collaborated in the
attempt to eliminate her.
Davenport is seconded from his Minnesota base to help the FBI track Rinker down, in a
vain attempt to forestall the inevitable murders. Although he has well-respected colleagues
among the ranks of the FBI, Lucas is less than enchanted with their methods and results,
and he recruits his own little band of retired St. Louis cops. Clara manages to stay at least
one step ahead of the FBI and the police, and Sandford has achieved the difficult task of
somehow enabling the reader to root for her with a clear conscience, murderer that she is,
as well as wanting Lucas' investigation to be successful. It helps, of course, that her
intended victims are unpleasant, double-dealing characters operating on the margins of
legality. Lucas too feels sympathy for Rinker – he knows of her abusive background and
there is, moreover, a chemistry between them. The journey and the investigation are both
a marvellous mix of fast action, humour, terrific plotting and credible, complex characters.
The ending is inevitable, but the route there is one of indescribable, breath-holding
tension.
John Sandford's new novel is a true top-of-the-range model, a worthy recipient of all the
very best phrases that any reviewer can summon up – and then some.
(
Judith Rhodes
)
New Books by John Sandford at Amazon.co.uk
Secondhand and Out of Print Books by John Sandford at Alibris.com
