Mad River by John Sandford

So Mad River is the latest installment in John Sandford's Virgil Flowers adventures. The previous Virgil Flowers novels have been reviewed here on the blog, and you can find them by doing a search on the blog if you're interested. This latest installment differs from previous ones by the fact that it is largely a manhunt--the culprits are known to the police, so there isn't much need for detecting much besides the whereabouts of said culprits before they drop more bodies in their bloody wake.

Virgil Flowers is literally just returned from a Bahamian vacation when his boss at Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Davenport, sends him into western Minnesota to work a double murder and then the massive manhunt that ensues. Unfortunately for Flowers by novel's end things go sideways leaving him unable to tie up his investigation to his liking.

Jimmy Sharp, Becky Welsh, and Tom McCall just want to get to L.A. even if that means killing some people to get themselves a set of wheels that won't break down and leave them sit along and a couple grocery bags of money. To get the latter, they break into a random house in the wealthy part of town, but the burglary goes wrong when Jimmy shoots a girl dead in cold blood. Now they're on the run and then their car won't start, so they kill someone else, steal his car and take off for their hometown. Once the trio from hell arrive there, bodies start dropping in their wake, and now the police are onto their identities if not exactly (as of yet) their whereabouts. As local police, sheriffs' departments, state agents, and the National Guard converge on western Minnesota for the manhunt to end all manhunts,Virgil starts digging.

As we know from previous novels, Virgil deals in information and likes to dig up as much of it as he can on anyone and anything even remotely related to an investigation because you never what connections might kick loose. But in depth information on his trio of suspects is scarce, and Virgil has a hunch absent any evidence that the first murder wasn't really as random as originally believed. Unfortunately Becky, Jimmy and Tom didn't have many friends and those who did know them say that Jimmy and Becky are both dumber than a box of a hair, that Tom, while smarter than his murderous brethren, is not memorable in any way, and that Jimmy is mean and probably involved in drugs and prone to violence. What emerges is a picture of three young people, each dealt bad hands in life, determined to claw their way out of their dead end town, embittered by their less than stellar life circumstances and set to exact a little payback on those perceived to have done them wrong.

As the manhunt expands into neighboring counties and states, Virgil realizes that all the (circumstantial) evidence he's accrued points to the first murder being a hired hit, but it isn't enough for a conviction. In other words, Virgil needs those kids alive to make his case stick. A prospect that's easier said than done when the local sheriff's department on the kids' trail is hot for vengeance for a fallen brother and have decided to be judge, jury and executioner. In the end this is one ride that won't end well, which might be the understatement of the year.

I recommend you pick up this quick read. Fans of Virgil Flowers and/or John Sandford won't want to miss this latest suspenseful installment.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

How To Be A Heroine: Or What I've Learned From Reading Too Much by Samantha Ellis

I feel as if I could write a book subtitled "What I've Learned From Reading Too Much" except all my lessons would be culled from Greek mythology, the Babysitters' Club, the lives of British queens, crime mysteries, suspense thrillers and celebrity and entertainment gossip. I first ran across How To Be A Heroine by Samantha Ellis in an ad in BookPage. The title sounded intriguing and once I looked it up on Amazon, I was in for reading it. It reminds me of the literacy autobiography writing assignment that I had in one of my English composition classes in college--except this is the literacy autobiography on steroids. The premise of this book is that the author revisits the seminal texts that she read in her youth by examining the lessons and impressions of the novels that she had upon her first readings when she was younger. Ellis has then re-read the novels as an adult specifically for the writing of her own book to see if the novels hold up to her original i

Heat Lightning by John Sandford

I'd previously read John Sandford's first Virgil Flowers novel, Dark of the Moon , a few years back and found it to be a quick, well written read. Recently I discovered he has since written three more Flowers titles and decided to start with the second title and read through to the fourth and most recent one. Heat Lightning is the second Flowers installment. The darkness of the crimes committed that must be solved in the novel are leavened by the lighter presentation of Flowers and the story. It works well together--a dark crime doesn't always need dark prose to back it up. Virgil Flowers is Lucas Davenport's go to man in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension when there's a sensitive, tough or otherwise puzzling case to solve. Flowers has a high clearance rate and can often turn around a case in about a week. This particular case is especially perplexing with quite a few red herrings thrown into the mix to throw everyone--Flowers and the reader in

The Whisperers by John Connolly

If there was one thing Jimmy didn't care for, it was competition, ... There were some exceptions to that rule: he was rumored to have a sweet deal with the Mexicans, but he wasn't about to try to reason with the Dominicans, or the Columbians, or the bikers, or even the Mohawks. If they wanted to avail themselves of his services, as they sometimes did, that was fine, but if Jimmy Jewel started questioning their right to move product he and Earle would end up tied to chairs in the [bar] with pieces of themselves scattered by their feet, assuming their feet weren't among the scattered pieces, while the bar burned down around their ears, assuming they still had ears. from page 86 The Whisperers is John Connolly's newest Charlie Parker installment in which some beloved characters reappear and in which previous characters from another Parker installment reappear to shed further light on the big baddie that may or may not be coming for Parker in the future. This newest inst

A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

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