JOHN SANDFORD

On a cold late Autumn Sunday in Southern Minnesota, a farmer bringing in his harvest is bludgeoned around the head by a young man wielding a bat. Leaving the unconscious farmer to drown in the grain bin, the young man calls the sheriff's office to report the 'accident'. Suspicious about the nature of the incident, Sheriff Lee Coakley quickly breaks the teenager down. But when she finds him hanging in his cell the next morning, she doubts it was remorse or guilt that led him to take his own life. In fact, she's not convinced it was suicide at all. Worried that she is up against a far more complicated case than she first thought, Coakley calls in Virgil Flowers. For an investigator with his expertise, it doesn't take long for Flowers to uncover a conspiracy that has bubbled away under the surface of this sleepy community for generations - and a series of crimes so monstrous that the small town can never be the same again.

Bestseller Sandford opts for a contemplative procedural rather than a high-octane nail-biter for his 17th novel to feature Minneapolis detective Lucas Davenport (after 2005's Broken Prey). The brave and intelligent Davenport, one of contemporary crime fiction's more congenial sleuths, is working a politically sensitive case?state senator Burt Kline is on the edge of being arrested for having sex with a minor?when he's called in to investigate the beating death of wealthy widow Constance Bucher and her maid. Bucher lived in a mansion stuffed with antiques, though it's unclear if robbery was the motive for the murders. Several run-of-the-mill suspects are dealt with before the reader learns the identity of the two killers, who continue to murder a string of folks all variously connected to the Bucher slaying. Eventually, the Bucher and Kline cases come together in an unexpected way. Interesting and unusual supporting characters, good and bad guys alike, enhance an intriguing puzzle.

Virgil Flowers, tall, lean, late thirties, three times divorced, hair way too long for a cop''s, kicked around for a while before joining the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. First it was the Army and the military police, then the police in St. Paul, and finally Lucas Davenport brought him into the BCA, promising him, "We''ll only give you the hard stuff." He''s been doing the hard stuff for three years now - but never anything like this. In the small town of Bluestem, where everybody knows everybody, a house way up on a ridge explodes into flames, its owner, a man named Judd, trapped inside. There is a lot of reason to hate him, Flowers discovers. Years ago, Judd perpetrated a scam that drove a lot of local farmers out of business, even to suicide. There are also rumors swirling around: of some very dicey activities with other men''s wives; of involvement with some nutcase religious guy; of an out-of-wedlock daughter. In fact, Flowers concludes, you''d probably have to dig around to find a person who doesn''t despise Judd. And that isn''t even the reason Flowers came to Bluestem. Three weeks before, there''d been another murder - two, in fact - a doctor and his wife, the doctor found propped up in his backyard, both eyes shot out. There hadn''t been a murder in Bluestem in years, and now suddenly three? Flowers knows two things: This wasn''t a coincidence, and this had to be personal. But just how personal is something even he doesn''t realize, and may not find out until too late. Because the next victim ... may be himself.

Virgil Flowers-tall, lean, late thirties, three times divorced, hair way too long for a cop's-had kicked around for a while before joining the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. First, it was the army and the military police, then the police in St. Paul, and finally Lucas Davenport had brought him into the BCA, promising him, "We'll only give you the hard stuff."

"DAVUNPOTO inspector serie por John Sanford. Sanford premio Pulitzer-periodista y ganar un thriller político que vendedor. El ex senador republicano brutalmente. Elija una lucha por la Presidencia se lucha por el poder olor de los agentes de Invierno de la Casa Blanca, la esposa de la victima tiene una idea de como el cerebro de la trama en la cara peligrosa.

In the richest neighbourhood of Minneapolis, two elderly women lie murdered in their home, beaten to death with a metal pipe, the rooms ransacked, only small items stolen. It''s clearly a random break-in by someone looking for money to buy drugs. But as he looks more closely, Davenport begins to wonder if the items are actually so small or the victims so random, if there might not be some invisible agenda at work here. Gradually, a pattern begins to emerge - and it will lead Davenport to somewhere he never expected. Which is too bad, because the killers - and there is more than one of them - the killers are expecting him.

A widow comes home to her house in a wealthy suburb to find blood everywhere, no body-and her college-aged Goth daughter missing. But the police can't find the girl, alive or dead, and when a second Goth is found slashed to death, the widow truly panics. She calls on Lucas Davenport to solve the case. This is the latest Prey novel by 1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford.

Lucas Davenport sabe por qué mata la gente. Algunos lo hacen por la emoción del momento. Otros para conseguir algo. Pero cuando el equipo de Davenport abate a dos atracadoras en pleno golpe, el policía cae presa de la motivación más pura y sencilla de todas: la venganza. Y así empieza todo. El marido de una agente es asesinado. A la mujer de otro le tienden una emboscada en el trabajo. Cuando consiguen frustrar un tercer ataque, el patrón queda claro para Davenport. Éste, con una urgencia nacida de la rabia y el terror, lucha por dar caza a los asesinos, siguiéndoles los pasos con desesperación para intentar detenerlos antes de que puedan golpear de nuevo, antes de que den también con los seres más queridos de Davenport. Pero a pesar de todos sus esfuerzos, es posible que llegue tarde. «Una novela de suspense que te pondrá los pelos de punta. La apuesta es fuerte, los personajes sustanciosos y la acción incesante... la historia atrapará como una trampa para osos a cualquiera que abra este libro».—Publishers Weekly «Seguramente lo leerá de un tirón» —Chicago Tribune

A daring drugs raid on a Minneapolis hospital, during which a medical orderly is kicked to death, takes place on the same day that Lucas Davenport's surgeon wife, Weather, is due to perform a high-profile operation to separate conjoined twin girls. Investigating the raid, Davenport concludes that it must have been an inside job and - as a witness to the criminals' desperate getaway - Weather is now in grave danger.

Very early, 4:45, on a bitterly cold Minnesota morning, three big men burst through the door of a hospital pharmacy, duct-tape the hands, feet, mouth, and eyes of two pharmacy workers, and clean the place out. But then things swiftly go bad, one of the workers dies, and the robbers hustle out to their truck-and find themselves for just one second face-to-face with a blond woman in the garage: Weather Karkinnen, surgeon, wife of an investigator named Lucas Davenport. Did she see enough? Can she identify them? Gnawing it over later, it seems to them there is only one thing they can do: Find out who she is, and eliminate the only possible witness...

In Israel, a man clutching a backpack searches desperately for a boat. In Minnesota, Virgil Flowers gets a message from Lucas Davenport: You're about to get a visitor. It's an Israeli cop, and she's tailing a man who's smuggled out an extraordinary relic-a copper scroll revealing startling details about the man known as King Solomon. Wait a minute, laughs Virgil. Is this one of those Da Vinci Code deals? The secret scroll, the blockbuster revelation, the teams of murderous bad guys? Should I be boning up on my Bible verses? He looks at the cop. She's not laughing. As it turns out, there are very bad men chasing the relic, and they don't care who's in the way or what they have to do to get it. Maybe Virgil should start praying.

In Israel, a man clutching a backpack searches desperately for a boat. In Minnesota, Virgil Flowers gets a message from Lucas Davenport: You're about to get a visitor. It's an Israeli cop, and she's tailing a man who's smuggled out an extraordinary relic-a copper scroll revealing startling details about the man known as King Solomon. Wait a minute, laughs Virgil. Is this one of those Da Vinci Code deals? The secret scroll, the blockbuster revelation, the teams of murderous bad guys? Should I be boning up on my Bible verses? He looks at the cop. She's not laughing. As it turns out, there are very bad men chasing the relic, and they don't care who's in the way or what they have to do to get it. Maybe Virgil should start praying.