Skip to main content

John Sandford

Biography

John Sandford

John Sandford is the pseudonym for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp. He is the author of the Prey novels, the Kidd novels, the Virgil Flowers novels, and six other books, including three YA novels co-authored with his wife, Michele Cook.

John Sandford

Books by John Sandford

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

A renowned expert in tropical and infectious diseases, Dr. Lionel Scott has witnessed the devastating impact of illness and turmoil at critical scale. While most are concerned about deadly disease, Scott knows that it is truly humanity itself that will destroy Gaia. It’s only by removing the threat that the planet can continue to prosper, and luckily, Scott is just the right man for the job. When Scott then disappears without a trace, Letty Davenport is tasked with tracking down any and all leads. As the web around Scott becomes more tangled, Letty calls in her father, Lucas, help her lead a group of specialists to find Scott as soon as possible. But as Letty and Lucas begin to uncover startling and disturbing connections between Scott and Gaia conspiracists, their worst fears are confirmed, and it quickly becomes a race to find him before the virus he created becomes the perfect weapon.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Letty Davenport’s previous actions at a gunfight in Texas --- and her incredible skills with firearms --- draw the attention of several branches of the US government. The Department of Homeland Security and the NSA have tasked her with infiltrating a hacker group, known only as Ordinary People, that is intent on wreaking havoc. Letty and her reluctant partner from the NSA pose as free-spirited programmers for hire and embark on a cross-country road trip to the group’s California headquarters. While the two work to make inroads with Ordinary People and uncover their plans, they begin to suspect that the hackers are not their only enemy. Someone within their own circle may have betrayed them and has ulterior motives that place their mission --- and their lives --- in grave danger.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Alex Sand was playing basketball with his two young sons when all three were shot in cold blood. A wealthy federal judge, there’s no short list of people who could have a vendetta against Alex. But the gruesome murders, especially that of his children, turn their St. Paul community on its head. Alex was on the verge of a major donation to a local housing charity, Heart/Twin Cities. With the money in limbo, eyes suddenly turn to his grieving widow, Margaret Cooper, to see what she might do with the money. Margaret struggles to move forward and can’t imagine how or why anyone would target her husband. With public pressure mounting and both the local police force and the FBI hitting dead end after dead end, Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers are called in to do what others could not: find answers.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

“We’re going to murder people who need to be murdered.” So begins a press release from a mysterious group known only as “The Five” shortly after a vicious predator is murdered in San Francisco. The Five is believed to be made up of vigilante killers who are very bored…and very rich. They target the worst of society --- rapists, murderers and thieves --- and then use their unlimited resources to offset the damage done by those who they’ve killed, donating untraceable Bitcoin to charities and victims via the dark net. The Five soon become the most popular figures on social media, a modern-day Batman, though their motives may not be entirely pure. After a woman is murdered in the Twin Cities, Virgil Flowers and Lucas Davenport are sent in to investigate. And they soon have their hands full.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

A recent Stanford grad, Letty Davenport is restless and bored in a desk job for U.S. Senator Colles. But then Colles offers her a carrot: feet-on-the-ground investigative work, in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security. Several oil companies in Texas have reported thefts of crude. Rumor has it that a fairly ugly militia group --- led by a woman known only as Lorelai --- might be involved. Colles wants to know if the money is going to them, and if so, what they’re planning. Letty is partnered with a DHS investigator, John Kaiser, and they head to Texas. When the case quickly turns deadly, they know they’re on the track of something bigger. Lorelai and her group have set in motion an explosive plan...and the clock is ticking down.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

An off-duty Coast Guardsman is fishing with his family when he calls in some suspicious behavior from a nearby boat. It’s a snazzy craft, slick and outfitted with extra horsepower, and it’s zipping along until it slows to pick up a surfaced diver…a diver who was apparently alone, without his own boat, in the middle of the ocean. None of it makes sense unless there's something hinky going on, and his hunch is proved right when all three Guardsmen who come out to investigate are shot and killed. When the FBI's investigation stalls out, they call in Lucas Davenport. And when his case turns lethal, Davenport will need to bring in every asset he can claim, including a detective with a fundamentally criminal mind: Virgil Flowers.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Clayton Deese looks like a small-time criminal, muscle for hire when his loan shark boss needs to teach someone a lesson. Now, seven months after a job that went south and landed him in jail, Deese has skipped out on bail, and the U.S. Marshals come looking for him. They don't much care about a low-level guy --- it's his boss they want --- but Deese might be their best chance to bring down the whole operation. Then they step onto a dirt trail behind Deese's rural Louisiana cabin and find a jungle full of graves. Now Lucas Davenport is on the trail of a serial killer who has been operating for years without notice. His quarry is ruthless, and --- as Davenport will come to find --- full of surprises.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

At the local state university, two feuding departments have faced off on the battleground of science and medicine. Each carries their views to extremes that may seem absurd, but highly educated people of sound mind and good intentions can reasonably disagree, right? Then a renowned and confrontational scholar winds up dead, and Virgil Flowers is brought in to investigate. As he probes the recent ideological unrest, he soon comes to realize he's dealing with people who, on this one particular issue, are functionally crazy. Among this group of wildly impassioned, diametrically opposed zealots lurks a killer, and it will be up to Virgil to sort the murderer from the mere maniacs.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Clayton Deese looks like a small-time criminal, muscle for hire when his loan shark boss needs to teach someone a lesson. Now, seven months after a job that went south and landed him in jail, Deese has skipped out on bail, and the U.S. Marshals come looking for him. They don't much care about a low-level guy --- it's his boss they want --- but Deese might be their best chance to bring down the whole operation. Then, they step onto a dirt trail behind Deese's rural Louisiana cabin and find a jungle full of graves. Lucas Davenport is now on the trail of a serial killer who has been operating for years without notice. His quarry is ruthless, and --- as Davenport will come to find --- full of surprises.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Wheatfield, Minnesota: a metropolis of 600 souls and change, for which the word "moribund" might have been invented. Nothing ever happened there and nothing ever would --- until the mayor of sorts (campaign slogan: "I'll Do What I Can") and his precocious teenage buddy come up with a scheme to put Wheatfield on the map. Should something dramatic occur --- say, that the apparition of the Virgin Mary miraculously appeared at the local Catholic Church --- the whole town would be turned into a shrine, attracting thousands of pilgrims. And all those pilgrims needed food, shelter, all kinds of crazy things. The town would get rich! What could go wrong? Then the shootings begin. And as they --- and Virgil Flowers --- are about to discover, that's only the beginning of their troubles.

written by John Sandford, read by Richard Ferrone - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Clayton Deese looks like a small-time criminal, muscle for hire when his loan shark boss needs to teach someone a lesson. Now, seven months after a job that went south and landed him in jail, Deese has skipped out on bail, and the U.S. Marshals come looking for him. They don't much care about a low-level guy --- it's his boss they want --- but Deese might be their best chance to bring down the whole operation. Then, they step onto a dirt trail behind Deese's rural Louisiana cabin and find a jungle full of graves. Lucas Davenport is now on the trail of a serial killer who has been operating for years without notice. His quarry is ruthless, and --- as Davenport will come to find --- full of surprises.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

A rich psychopath, Taryn Grant had run successfully for the U.S. Senate, where Lucas Davenport had predicted she'd fit right in. He was also convinced that she'd been responsible for three murders, though he'd never been able to prove it. Once a psychopath had gotten that kind of rush, though, he or she often needed another fix, so he figured he might be seeing her again. He was right. A federal marshal now, with a very wide scope of investigation, he's heard rumors that Grant has found her seat on the Senate intelligence committee, and the contacts she's made from it, to be very...useful. Pinning those rumors down was likely to be just as difficult as before, and considerably more dangerous.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Virgil Flowers knows the town of Trippton, Minnesota, a little too well. A few years back, he investigated the corrupt --- and, as it turned out, homicidal --- local school board, and now the town is back in view with more alarming news: A woman has been found dead, frozen in a block of ice. There’s a possibility that it might be connected to a high school class of 20 years ago that has a mid-winter reunion coming up, so Virgil begins to dig into 20 years’ worth of traumas, feuds and bad blood. In the process, one thing becomes increasingly clear to him. It’s true what they say: High school is murder.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

A Biloxi, Mississippi, drug-cartel counting house gets robbed, and suitcases full of cash disappear, leaving behind five bodies, including that of a six-year-old girl. Lucas Davenport --- who now works for the U.S. Marshals Service --- takes the case, which quickly spirals out of control, as cartel assassins, including a torturer known as the “Queen of home-improvement tools,” compete with Davenport to find the Dixie Hicks shooters who knocked over the counting house. Things get ugly really fast, and neither the cartel killers nor the holdup men give a damn about whose lives Davenport might have saved; to them, he’s just another large target.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

The first storm comes from, of all places, the Minnesota zoo. Two large, and very rare, Amur tigers have vanished from their cage, and authorities are worried sick that they’ve been stolen for their body parts. Traditional Chinese medicine prizes those parts for home remedies, and people will do extreme things to get what they need. Some of them are a great deal more extreme than others --- as Virgil Flowers is about to find out. Then there’s the homefront. Virgil’s relationship with his girlfriend Frankie has been getting kind of serious, but when Frankie’s sister Sparkle moves in for the summer, the situation gets a lot more complicated.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

After the events in GATHERING PREY, Lucas Davenport finds himself in a very unusual situation --- no longer employed by the Minnesota BCA. His friend the governor is just cranking up a presidential campaign, though, and he invites Lucas to come along as part of his campaign staff. “Should be fun!” Lucas says, and it kind of is --- until they find they have a shadow: an armed man intent on killing the governor…and anyone who gets in the way.

by John Sandford and Ctein - Fiction, Futuristic, Suspense, Thriller

In 2066, a Caltech intern notices an anomaly from a space telescope --- something is approaching Saturn, and decelerating. Space objects don’t decelerate. Spaceships do. A flurry of top-level government meetings produce the inescapable conclusion: Whatever built the ship is at least 100 years ahead of our technology, and whoever can get their hands on it will have an advantage so large, no other nation can compete. The race is on, and a remarkable adventure begins. Soon a hastily thrown-together crew finds its strength and wits tested against adversaries of this earth and beyond.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

They call them Travelers. They drift from city to city, always staying on the move. Now somebody is murdering them, one by one. When Lucas Davenport's adopted daughter, Letty, gets a phone call from a female Traveler she'd befriended in San Francisco, Letty urges her father to investigate. The woman’s male companion is missing. And the woman is very afraid. Though he suspects Letty is getting played, Lucas volunteers to help. Little does he know that he’ll embark upon an odyssey through a subculture unlike any he’s ever seen --- and that just may change the course of his life.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

In Southeast Minnesota, a school board meeting is coming to an end. The board chairman announces that the rest of the meeting will be closed, due to personnel issues. The proposal up for a vote before them is whether to authorize the killing of a local reporter. The vote is four to one in favor. Meanwhile, not far away, Virgil Flowers gets a call from Lucas Davenport. A murdered body has been found --- and the victim is a local reporter.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

After multiple bodies are found in an abandoned farmyard in the middle of cornfields, Lucas Davenport begins to investigate and makes some disturbing discoveries of his own. The victims had been killed over a great many years, one every summer. How could this have happened without anybody noticing? One thing is for sure: the killer had to live close by and was probably even someone they saw every day.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

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. 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.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Lucas Davenport is investigating a case when the trail leads to the disappearance of a Minnesota political fixer, then --- very troublingly --- to the Minneapolis police department, then --- most troublingly of all --- to a woman who could give Machiavelli lessons. She has very definite ideas about the way the world should work, and the money, ruthlessness and sheer will to make it happen. No matter who gets in the way.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

As the crime spree of three teenagers cuts a swath through rural Minnesota, some of it captured on the killers’ cell phones and sent to a local television station, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers joins the growing army of cops trying to run them down. But even he doesn’t realize what’s about to happen next.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

In the small Minnesota town of Deephaven, an entire family has been killed. To Lucas Davenport, the scene looks an awful lot like the kind of scorched-earth retribution he has seen in drug killings sometimes. But this is a seriously upscale town, and the husband was an executive vice president at a big bank. It just doesn’t seem to fit. Until it does.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

The superstore chain PyeMart has its sights set on a Minnesota river town, but two very angry groups want to stop it: local merchants fearing for their businesses, and environmentalists predicting ecological disaster. The protests don't seem to be slowing the project, though, until someone decides to take matters into his own hands.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Thriller

A house demolition leads to the discovery of the bodies of two girls wrapped in plastic. They disappeared in 1985 when Lucas Davenport was a young cop, and his bosses ultimately declared the case closed, though he never agreed. Now Davenport has a chance to investigate and finally learn the truth.

by John Sandford - Thriller

The haunting, unforgettable, ice-blooded thriller that introduced Lucas Davenport is so chilling that you're almost afraid to turn the pages and so mesmerizing you cannot stop.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Thriller

Art history professor James Qatar has a hobby: he takes secret photographs of women to fuel more elaborate fantasies. When he’s alone. Behind locked doors. Then one day, he goes a step further and well, one thing leads to another. Qatar has no choice. He has to kill her. And you know something? He likes it.