Chosen Prey

Starred review from April 23, 2001
The 13th title in the Prey series (Easy Prey, etc.) has wealthy Minneapolis Deputy Police Chief Lucas Davenport in up to his Porsche-driving fingertips. Lucas is trying to track an elusive serial killer while reuniting with former fiancée Weather Karkinnen who—after a couple of years' estrangement following her narrow escape from a crazy biker in one of Lucas's former cases—has suddenly decided she wants to have his baby. Weather is a formidable distraction, but the killer—revealed to readers from the beginning as James Qatar, a suave professor of art history with a yen for strangulation—proves to require even more attention. Soon after the body of a young blonde is found in a partially excavated grave on a remote wilderness hillside, a deputy sheriff from backwater Wisconsin shows up with a file containing case histories of several women reported missing in Wisconsin and Minnesota over a nine-year period. Fearing the worst, Lucas orders the hillside surveyed; subsequent excavation uncovers seven more bodies. The art world connections of some of the victims and the discovery of pornographic drawings suggests a link to the art community around the local Catholic university. As the net tightens, the usually coolheaded Qatar, already plotting the fate of a daring fabric artist in cahoots with the police, gradually loses control. With Lucas and his team watching his every move, he eludes surveillance and carries out a final desperate attack. Sandford is in top form here, his wry humor and his development of Lucas's combative, affectionate relationship with Weather lighting up the dark of another grisly investigation. Simultaneous audio. (May)Forecast:Sandford's thrillers are reliably excellent, and his latest, a BOMC main selection backed by a national ad/ promo campaign and an author tour, marks a high point in the Prey series. The book should hit #1 its first week out.

May 1, 2001
Troubled by both city politics and his relationship with his fiancee, Minneapolis Deputy Police Chief Lucas Davenport finds the comfortable routines of a murder investigation as soothing as a worn pair of jeans. The discovery of a young woman's body, missing 18 months, leads to a local pornographic photography ring that posts its handiwork on the Internet. In the confiscated files, Lucas finds a photo of a woman who was standing near the site where the victim's body was found. An excavation uncovers eight more bodies, turning a routine homicide investigation into a desperate search for a monster. This thirteenth Prey novel shows signs that the series may be getting a bit stale. The investigation is routine by procedural standards, and only the last quarter of the novel generates any suspense, as the killer appears to wriggle out of Davenport's net before being pulled back in by an unlikely hand. The good news is that Davenport seems poised for significant personal and occupational changes, which may invigorate future cases. Sandford fans won't consider this one of the series' best, but even mediocre Sandford offers solid entertainment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)

July 2, 2001
Audio Reviews reflect PW's assessment of the audio adaptation of a book and should be quoted only in reference to the audio version. Fiction CHOSEN PREY John Sandford, read by Eric Conger. Putnam, abridged, four cassettes, 6 hours, $24.95 ISBN 0-399-14758-6 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).