Review: Field of Prey by John Sandford

A Mysterious Review of Field of Prey by John Sandford. A Lucas Davenport Mystery.

Review summary: Lucas Davenport as a character and the primary storyline are probably reason enough to read this murder mystery. But there are lots of distractions here, some of which are more troublesome than others. Still, fans of the series will enjoy the complicated case and most will be surprised at the outcome. (Click here for text of full review.)

Our rating:

Field of Prey
John Sandford
A Lucas Davenport Mystery
Putnam (May 2014)

Publisher synopsis: The night after the fourth of July, Layton Carlson Jr., of Red Wing, Minnesota, finally got lucky. And unlucky.

He’d picked the perfect spot to lose his virginity to his girlfriend, an abandoned farmyard in the middle of cornfields: nice, private, and quiet. The only problem was … something smelled bad — like, really bad. He mentioned it to a county deputy he knew, and when the cop took a look, he found a body stuffed down a cistern. And then another, and another.

By the time Lucas Davenport was called in, the police were up to fifteen bodies and counting. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, when Lucas began to investigate, he made some disturbing discoveries of his own. The victims had been killed over a great many years, one every summer, regular as clockwork. How could this have happened without anybody noticing?

Because one thing was for sure: the killer had to live close by. He was probably even someone they saw every day …