A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Escape Clause is the ninth Virgil Flowers novel by John Sandford.  I have previously reviewed the first eight installments of this series here on the blogs.  Here's a link to the last one: Deadline .  And you can click on the John Sandford tag or search John Sandford on the blog to find the others.  In this installment Flowers takes on a wild case that quickly escalates from thievery/catnapping to murder. When two rare, endangered tigers are catnapped from the state zoo, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension puts their best investigator on the case that could become a public relations nightmare if the tigers turn up dead.  Unfortunately scant clues and even less evidence leads to few leads for Flowers to follow up.  So he does what he does best: he starts asking questions, gathering information, and learning the local players in the illegal animal poaching and traditional medicine communities.  Eventually he bumps up against a name, Winston Peck, M....

If you've read this blog for a while now, you know that John Sandford's Virgil Flowers series is one of the series that I read.   Deadline is the eighth installment in this series.  I've read and reviewed all the previous installments on this blog.  You can click here to read the review for the previous installment in the series.  I've been doing some thinking about some of these story lines and the crimes that Virgil Flowers' has investigated over the course of the series, and some have been a little absurd and ridiculous (and in some cases, Virgil has even agreed with me!  See the review for Storm Front , the book right before Deadline ).  I'm thinking about the one in which he goes up against some Vietnamese spies/assassins that come to Minnesota to rain down some vengeance stemming from a forty or fifty year old massacre that happened half a world away and the last one in which a Da Vinci Code -esque Biblical archaeological artifact heist is at the ...

It's been a while since I posted here.  I was reading Letters from Skye then I got distracted by Storm Front (which I am reviewing here), and now I've started an Elin Hilderbrand book, but I've not been reading very much of it because I've been distracted by other things (mostly Christmas).   Storm Front is the new installment in the Virgil Flowers series.  It has a Da Vinci Code -esque plot of which I was extremely skeptical.  It's like really, another mystical Bible mystery that could turn the world's religions on their heads AGAIN?  Even Virgil was, like, whoa, dude, really?  (It said so on the jacket blurb, okay?  HE AGREED WITH ME.)  However, this reads like any other Virgil Flowers novel.  This book also reiterated for me that Virgil has seriously questionable taste in women.  I mean, starting up a fling with the broad you're investigating for fraud?  Not.  Smart. No sooner is a piece of rock bearing the name of th...

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...

I know, I know.  It's been a very long time since I've posted a review--because it's a very long time since I've read a book.  I'd started a few, but finished none and was fretting about how long this dry spell would last when along comes Shock Wave by John Sandford.  It is the latest installment in the Virgil Flowers series, and it picks up about six months after the end of the last novel in the series.  There was a wait for the book--and I think there still might be a long list of holds for the book.  It was a very fast read--it only took me a few days to read it. Shock Wave is so titled because of the rash of bombings at the story's center.  It tells of the latest, big investigation for Virgil Flowers, the sometime writer and eternal fisherman who is also the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension's top investigator and the governor's "third most favorite troublemaker." On his day off, Virgil is called in to investigate when a bom...

This is the fourth Virgil Flowers novel by John Sandford, and it's called Bad Blood .  When I got to page 179 I found a nasty surprise: half of that page was missing.  And the wait list for the book still had eight people on it.  I finally just broke down and read around the part that was missing and continued on with the book.  I couldn't wait for months until it came in to finish it--patience is not one of my virtues. This is Flowers' biggest case since the bodies that were dumped at various veterans' memorials, and this case is much bigger and much nastier.  A county sheriff calls Flowers in to investigate the suicide of a teen boy being held in her jail for the murder of a middle aged farmer, who, upon closer inspection, turns out to be far from the upstanding citizen most people thought he was.  When the correctional officer on duty at the time of the boy's suicide also turns up dead, it becomes clear this case is bigger than a single murder.  F...

Rough Country is the third installment in the adventures of Virgil Flowers, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension super agent. The series is written by John Sandford. Flowers, the BCA's go to guy for cases that are especially difficult or in need of a quick turn around, is on a much needed vacation in the wake of the events that closed the previous Flowers novel.  (This shouldn't deter one from jumping in feet first mid-series; although it's smart to start at the beginning anyway because you'll go back to the beginning to read the ones you missed.)  Those events have also made Flowers a minor celebrity due to a New York Times Magazine article series the wannabe writer wrote about the investigation that was subsequently picked up and run by every local paper in Minnesota, and Flowers isn't sure he likes being a minor celebrity. Flowers' vacation is interrupted by a phone call from his boss who pulls him off vacation to investigate a murder nearby in a co...

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...

Considering when I read this book, this review comes a little late; I'm already deep into another book. How did you spend your Memorial Day weekend? I spent mine reading this book. About 30 pages in, I was still thinking about whether or not I was going to finish it or ditch it and move on to the next one. There are too many books on my reading list to mess around with one I don't like or that doesn't hook me in the first few chapters. I used to feel guilty about dropping a book after a chapter or two if it didn't work out, but ever since one of my college professors said it was okay, I don't feel so bad about ditching a book if it's not connecting with me. There's always the next one. Then the next thing I knew, I was in over 100 pages; this book sucks you in like that. Dark of the Moon features Virgil Flowers, an off-beat agent for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (I think it's an equivalent of PA's State Troopers... some states have ...