Alice B. reviewed on 11/25/2013 + 3563 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

There's nothing like Sandford's "Prey" series to get you out of the reading doldrums. In Buried Prey, Sandford is at the top of his game, featuring fan favorite Lucas Davenport. Over the years, Lucas has risen from patrol to detective, now a top investigator in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. And like every seasoned detective, one case has burdened Davenport's conscience, the abduction and assumed murder of two young girls that occurs just as Lucas is breaking out of patrol work, angling for detective. Davenport accepts his superior's resolution to the case in spite of serious reservations. Now, twenty-five years later, the bodies of the Jones sisters are discovered at a construction site and Lucas is reexamining the case that has haunted his career. How many other victims have died through his willingness to acquiesce to authority?

In an inspired plot device, Sandford reintroduces the young and ambitious Lucas Davenport ("Then"), walking him through the Jones investigation, his eagerness to advance and the political realities he has yet to appreciate. Unfortunately, lack of training and seniority hamper Lucas in a system that doesn't reward renegades. "Now" examines the consequences of Davenport's decision not to buck the system, the found bodies a grim reminder that the real killer has remained free. Balancing his personal life with the finely-honed instincts of a successful career, Lucas is not exempt from the risks in this particular investigation, nor immune to the violence that follows in the killer's wake.

Of all his characters, Lucas Davenport is the most iconic, Sandford developing his protagonist over time, his personal and professional life grist for the series.

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