'Masked Prey': Less gunplay, more tension in this series entry

"Masked Prey" is the latest thriller by John Sandford. Credit: TNS/Penguin Random House
MASKED PREY by John Sanford (G.P. Putnam & Sons, 416 pp., $29)
John Sandford's "Prey" adventures usually start with a bang — literally. Typically, at least one person has been killed within the first 10 pages, with no shortage of blood yet to be spilled. But "Masked Prey" follows a radically different template. It's not so much about violence as it is about the threat of violence.
U.S. Marshal Lucas Davenport is assigned to crack an extremist website that is posting pictures of prominent politicians' children, promoting the notion that it would be possible to manipulate the government by killing a couple of the kids and then threatening everyone else. Lucas has to track down the people behind the website before somebody decides to test that theory, an assignment that grows exponentially more difficult when other extremists stumble on the site and buy into its premise.
It's not possible for Sandford to keep the guns in their holsters for an entire novel, but fans of his Lucas Davenport books might be surprised at how little gunplay there is. The plotting here is more along the lines one might expect in Sandford's other series involving Virgil Flowers, where the emphasis is more on detective work. But no one should mistake the lack of gunplay for an absence of tension. The portent of violence that hangs over the story is every bit as daunting as the actual stuff.
Most Popular
Top Stories





