Outstanding! After a bunch of lackluster efforts, John Sandford is back in top form with a new heroine, the adopted daughter of Lucas Davenport, working for a Senator and then Homeland Security to solve a case of oil theft that turns into something much, much bigger and more threatening to the USA. Extremely credible and well written, with a lot of snappy dialogue and smart plotting.
It was another John Sandford novel, and that's fine. Lots of action and quite a few bodies hitting the ground. Sandford has made a young female version of Lucas Davenport - purposefully, of course, because it's mentioned several times how she is just like him despite not being blood related. I liked the plot, with stolen oil funding an anti-immigrant militia, and I liked Letty's partnership with Kaiser. The POV shifts between Letty and the militia leader Jael, not sure I believed in Jael, but no matter. I could have wished for Letty, who's only 24, to be a little less hyper-competent. Standford grad, clothes horse, out-shoots a Delta-force military guy, everyone's terrified of her etc. There's a couple times where she grudgingly admits she has something to learn from her partner but she never puts a foot wrong or even guesses incorrectly. The action flows well and there's a good sense of place. Since I was listening to the audiobook, I couldn't slide over all the gun details, so many details... Again, no surprises, but to me that's tedious. But overall I enjoyed it, it's predictable mind-candy and was an excellent accompaniment to my craft project.
