⋙ [PDF] Free Mad River A Virgil Flowers Novel John Sandford 9780399157707 Books

Mad River A Virgil Flowers Novel John Sandford 9780399157707 Books

Download As PDF : Mad River A Virgil Flowers Novel John Sandford 9780399157707 Books

Mad River A Virgil Flowers Novel John Sandford 9780399157707 Books

Love, love, love anything by John Sandford. I have every book in the Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers series. In Lucas Davenport we have a character fully developed from his earlier "womanizing" days to the more mature but still incredibly sexy family man who sometimes turns a blind eye to the nuances of the law while in pursuit of "justice". He is made more human by his fear of air travel and his love of fashion. In Virgil Flowers we have a man whose actions and existence were shaped by his upbringing and YES..he is ALSO sexy. John Sandford has created two outstanding characters with a cast of "supporting players" equally outstanding. Each book revolves around some criminal activity (since these are lawmen, after all) and while those story lines are very good I feel the strength of these books lies in the portrayal of, and dialogue among the various characters.


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Mad River A Virgil Flowers Novel John Sandford 9780399157707 Books Reviews

Sanford is always good, so I am reluctant to give it less than five stars. If provided ten stars, I would have given it a nine, because it is not quite as good as some of his other Virgil Flowers books. Nonetheless, it does have strong characters, particularly strong villains. The plot is fairly straightforward a couple of Bonnie and cyde types go on a killing spree and Flowers and his team manage to track them down. In the process, Flowers discovers another murder arranged by a local Millionaire. There are some interesting walk-ons, such as a particularly nasty sheriff (what does Sanford have against sheriffs? This is hardly his first despicable "County Mounty"? And Sandford's political opinions, as expressed through those characters he loathes, are starting to become obtrusive.) We also learn some things about Flowers that we did not know before (or which were touched upon so lightly that I missed them), such as the fact that he is the son of a Marshall, Minnesota minister. The action is fast, and the villains are more sympathetically drawn than their actions deserve.

My principal objection to the book is that it is not a mystery. Unlike his Lucas Davenport books, which have been straightforward police procedurals, the previous Virgil Flowers entries have been "whodunits," however much they involve procedural matters in the process. And they were good "whodunits," keeping us guessing until the last pages. Here, the reader knows who did what early on, and it is obvious that the rather stupid crooks will be tracked down. The only questions are how many people they will kill before they are caught and how they will manage to get their comeuppance. I hope this book does not represent a new direction. Virgil Flowers is not a sufficiently interesting character to carry the story without mystery good enough to keep the pages turning. Furthermore, Sanford is running out of southern Minnesota venues to keep the local color fresh. He needs to get back to what kept the Flowers series such an interesting companion to the "Prey" books.

One caveat is necessary. Flowers at one point in the book notes that it is not illegal to sell a firearm to a private person in Minnesota. Actually, Minnesota is fairly strict about private sales, particularly of pistols. Minn. Stat. sec. 624.7132 requires an owner who desiresxz to transfer a pistol to report the proposed sale to law enforcement and must receive permission from law enforcement before the owner can legally consumate the sale. If either the owner or the proposed transferee is prohibited from possessing the pistol, law enfocement will refuse permission and the sale of the pistol would constitute a gross misdemeanor. I know that the book is fiction, but Flowers is portrayed as both a law enforcement agent and a "good guy," and some people reading the book will take his statement of the law as gospel. Such readers may wind up violating the law because they think that Flowers' statement is an accurate reflection of it. It isn't.
What is truly fascinating about Sandford's novels is sometimes we don't know who the murderer is until the middle of the book. Sometimes its almost the end. Here, the murderer(s) are populating the very first pages, plotting a robbery that quickly spins out of control. In classic Sandford fashion, however, what we see in the opening pages is far from the whole story.

This is a lucky murder for us, though, because it occurs far away from Minneapolis/St. Paul -- its in small-town Minnesota right down the road from where Virgil Flowers grew up. He comes onto the scene in time to discovery mayhem aplenty. He uses his "outside of the box" Virgil methods of detection to help him solve the case. I don't want to give too much away, but who but Virgil Flowers would travel to the state prison to quiz a group of inmates about what they'd do if they were hiding out?

I read this book over three days (that's fast for me), and I can attest that it is a solid Virgil Flowers effort. If you've read the last five Virgil Flowers novels (can you believe there have already been five?), then you, like me, probably can't wait until the next one comes out. We learn a little more about Virgil with every novel. We already knew that Virgil goes to sleep at night thinking about God. In this novel, we get to meet Virgil's parents (his father is a small-town pastor). We also get a better understanding of Virgil's ethics as a person and a cop. Here you'll learn that, in many respects, that Virgil is almost the opposite of Lucas Davenport -- which I suspect is exactly what Sandford had in mind.

I see from reading other reviews that some have criticized the writing style here, and I, too noticed that these books "feel" different from the Prey novels. I'm not really sure what it is, but I suspect it can be linked to the fact that Sandford has used various "collaborators" with each of the VF novels. As I understand things, however, the writing is 100% Sandford (none of that James Patterson book factory mess) and his fingerprints (meticulous plotting, the development of the recurring characters, and that quirky Minnesota sense of humor) are all over this one.

The suspense and the plot that you have come to love from Sandford -- they're here in spades. If you liked the last five, you'll love this one. Oh - and I think this could be the first VF novel without a reference to "That Effing Flowers." That was this novel's only disappointment.
Love, love, love anything by John Sandford. I have every book in the Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers series. In Lucas Davenport we have a character fully developed from his earlier "womanizing" days to the more mature but still incredibly sexy family man who sometimes turns a blind eye to the nuances of the law while in pursuit of "justice". He is made more human by his fear of air travel and his love of fashion. In Virgil Flowers we have a man whose actions and existence were shaped by his upbringing and YES..he is ALSO sexy. John Sandford has created two outstanding characters with a cast of "supporting players" equally outstanding. Each book revolves around some criminal activity (since these are lawmen, after all) and while those story lines are very good I feel the strength of these books lies in the portrayal of, and dialogue among the various characters.