Starred review from March 12, 2018
At the start of bestseller Sandford’s thoroughly entertaining 28th novel featuring Lucas Davenport (after 2017’s Golden Prey), political consultant Cecily Whitehead is driving Porter Smalls, a former U.S. senator from Minnesota, back to Washington, D.C., from his cabin in West Virginia when a pickup truck plows into their vehicle, knocking it off the road down a steep hill. Smalls suffers only a bloody nose, but Whitehead dies. Smalls believes this was an assassination attempt organized by Sen. Taryn Grant, who used a shady operative to plant child pornography on his computer in their senate race two years earlier, which Grant narrowly won. Convinced that she views him as an obstacle to her planned run for the presidency, Smalls asks his friend Davenport, now a U.S. marshal, for help. Davenport, who’s certain that Grant has committed three murders but doesn’t have the proof, is only too happy to get another crack at her. Davenport and Grant, aided by their respective allies, engage in a deadly cat-and-mouse game that will keep the reader turning the pages up to the exciting climax. This long-running series shows no sign of losing steam. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM.
March 15, 2018
Now that he's moved on from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to the elite U.S. Marshals Service, you might expect Lucas Davenport (Golden Prey, 2017, etc.) to deal with a distinctly higher class of lowlife. That's not how it works out.Minnesota Sen. Porter Smalls insists that the crash that nearly killed him and did kill his unacknowledged lover, Republican fundraiser Cecily Whitehead, was deliberately caused by a Ford F-250 truck that rammed his car and sent it plunging off a cliff. When the West Virginia accident investigator finds no sign of any such impact on his wrecked car, Smalls calls on Lucas to dig up the evidence that he's not just hallucinating and, ideally, that the crash was engineered by first-term Minnesota Sen. Taryn Grant, a proven sociopath who'd hate him even if she didn't already have her eyes on the White House. Smalls is right, of course, but making a case against someone as wealthy, ruthless, and well-connected as Grant won't be easy. While Lucas and fellow marshals Rae Givens and Bob Matees are chasing down leads, Grant, who's just as clearsighted as Smalls about her enemies, is issuing orders to her fixer, hustler Jack Parrish, about how to take Lucas out: mug him seriously enough to hospitalize him for a crucial month or so, arrange a distraction that will send him back to Minnesota, or, if all else fails, kill him dead. Spoiler alert: Even when they succeed short-term, Grant and her army of minions fail to derail Lucas' investigation into a particularly nasty episode in which the awarding of a military contract was manipulated to the significant detriment of the military services. The only thing that slows Lucas is the fact that every time he gets enough evidence against one of the underlings, his target is quite properly killed before he can testify against his fellow conspirators.Sandford is as professional as the evildoers aren't. The result is lots of great setups but remarkably few follow-throughs.
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Starred review from June 25, 2018
Sandford’s 28th Lucas Davenport novel, enhanced by an appropriately gruff narration by Ferrone, pits the lawman against an old foe: the beautiful and wealthy sociopath Senator Taryn Grant. Davenport was unable to stop the three-times murderer from winning her senate seat in Silken Prey (2013). Now, as she sets her sights on the presidency, he’s hoping to right that wrong. Assisting him is Senator Porter Smalls, another character from the earlier book, who’s at the top of Grant’s current hit list. Voice actor Ferrone presents Davenport as hardboiled and unyielding on the job, tender with his family, and relaxed with his pals (like the author’s other series lead, Virgil Flowers, who drops by for a cameo). Smalls sounds eager to assist, though understandably nervous and on edge. Grant speaks with almost unrelieved, hissing fury. Assassin Jack Parrish, who works for Grant, is a stoic professional, outwardly unruffled, though a flatness in his delivery suggests he’s not amused by the threats and insults she aims at him. Ferrone’s reading helps make this outing one of the best of the series. A Putnam hardcover.
May 1, 2018
The last time Lucas Davenport tangled with Taryn Grant, she was running for the U.S. Senate. She eked out a narrow win over an incumbent, Porter Smalls, on the basis of a manufactured child-pornography scandal?and a couple of murders, too. Grant is rich, beautiful, smart, and a psychopath. Davenport was with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension back then, and he was unable to tie Grant to the murders. Smalls is now doing all he can to thwart Grant's presidential ambitions, but, while he is on a weekend tryst with a longtime lover, Smalls' car is purposely run off the road. He survives, but his lover doesn't. He's sure Grant is behind the accident and uses his clout to get Davenport, now a U.S. marshal, assigned to investigate. The latest Davenport novel is one of the best in an always-strong series. Given the current geopolitical reality, it's timely, too, and the conclusion is a rockin' didn't see that coming beauty.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)