[Lucas Davenport 12] • Chosen Prey

He seems like such a nice man. You’d never guess what was going on in his mind…

Art history professor James Qatar has a hobby: he takes secret photographs of women to fuel more elaborate fantasies. When he’s alone. Behind locked doors. Then one day, he goes a step further and... well, one thing leads to another. Qatar has no choice. He has to kill her. And you know something? He likes it.

When Deputy Chief Lucas Davenport takes the case, he assumes it’ll be straightforward police work. He couldn’t be more wrong. As the investigation trail takes some unexpected turns, it becomes clear that nothing is straightforward about this killer, his victims, or his motives. And to stop him Lucas has no choice but to walk right into his lair.

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY JOHN SANDFORD

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Amazon.com Review

When a spring thaw disinters the body of a young woman who's been missing for over a year, Minneapolis detective Lucas Davenport doesn't have much to go on except the victim's rumored connection with an unnamed man, who may be an artist and also, perhaps, a priest. But then the deserted property where her body was discovered turns out to be a killing field full of other young blondes last seen in the company of a man with a nasty habit of superimposing their faces on pornographic drawings. Davenport begins to close in on a serial killer whose perverted hobby provides the clues Davenport needs to stop him in his bloody tracks. James Qatar isn't a priest, and he's not really an artist, but he's definitely a monster, one who's met his match in Davenport.

Davenport is a smart, thoughtful cop whose girlfriend is pressuring him to make a commitment to parenthood and whose boss is about to lose her job in a political turnover. While the search for the killer is handled in author John Sandford's usual, crisp, procedural style, it almost seems to be a pretext for exploring the evolution of Davenport's relationship with Dr. Weather Karkinnen. This 12th adventure in the author's popular Prey series will undoubtedly rocket to the top of the bestseller list, though it's not a standout. The novel displays the solid craftsmanship and narrative drive Sandford's known for, but his hero seems a little dispirited and out of sorts. Perhaps fatherhood will give Davenport a new lease on life. In the meantime, check out Sandford's backlist featuring his other hero, Kidd ( The Fool's Run , The Empress File , The Devil's Code ), who has a nice little walk-on here in which he begins a romance with Davenport's partner Marcy Sherrill. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

Just as Sandford (Easy Prey; Sudden Prey) has come to be known as a reliable provider of bestselling thrillers, so Eric Conger who won a Golden Earphone Award for his reading of the abridged version of Certain Prey has emerged as the ideal voice for Lucas Davenport, Sandford's wealthy, attractive, easily bored Minnesota deputy police chief, who manages to be a caring friend and lover while watching terrible things happen to those around him then going out and catching the miscreants responsible for those terrible deeds. Conger deftly brings Sandford's villains to life: a jolly, pipe-smoking art professor and sexual pervert named James Qatar, for example, who first tortures women by turning their images into computerized pornography, and then kills them. Add to that the multifaceted gallery of cop colleagues and current and ex-lovers that Conger skillfully evokes with his vocal talents, and it would be hard to say just who works harder the writer or the performer. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Forecasts, Apr. 23).

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