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A little confession here. I started reading John Sandford's Lucas Davenport nee
"Prey" novels right at the get-go, but stopped after the first three when it
seemed as if Davenport was beginning to slide off the rails. Life went on; empires rose
and fell, relationships ended and began anew, and brain cells died, taking hair follicles
with them. Then, with the year 2000, came the new Lucas Davenport novel, EASY PREY. On the
strength of that, Davenport and Sandford are back on my must-read list.
Davenport is with the Minneapolis Police Department; I am still not exactly clear as to
his precise role. He is an assistant chief or something but gets his hands dirty and his
pants dusty a bit too much to be a political hack. Davenport is also independently
wealthy, having had a hand in the creation of some computer software, so his primary
motivation for slogging along and fighting crime day in and day out seems to be that he
loves doing it. And let's say that women find him extremely attractive --- y'know, the
same type of trouble that Parker's Spenser and Spilliane's Mike Hammer have. Davenport
while juggling flames old and new in EASY PREY, finds himself up to his ears in what
appear to be serial homicides.
EASY PREY, after a short --- but important --- preamble, introduces us to Alie'e Maison, a
fashion model on a shoot in Minneapolis. Alie'e has overcome her humble Minnesota origins,
and a less than wonderful childhood, to become one of the top fashion models in the
country. It is unfortunate, then, that she should be found, murdered, at the aftermath of
an artsy-fartsy party where the, ah, pharmaceuticals are flying fast and free. What is
even more unfortunate is that another dead body is subsequently discovered at the scene of
the party and the crime.
Davenport is brought in. Where to start? Guests were coming and going throughout the
night; suspects abound. And, as Alie'e's acquaintances also begin dying, the suspect list
grows even faster than the body count. Davenport has a lot of insight and intuition, which
he brings to the investigation, but he makes mistakes, some of which are quite costly. And
it this is quality that really puts EASY PREY over. These are believable mistakes that a
flawed cop would make in the here and now. And his personal life? Davenport is confused
about what he wants to do. Sometimes he doesn't even know why he's doing what he's doing.
And that's believable too (have you ever slept with someone, and wondered why the next
day? Don't answer
or ask me the same question).
This makes for an extremely interesting characterization. Davenport is a guy who comes off
as very sure of himself --- wealthy, powerful, successful --- who is really feeling his
way along just like the rest of us. When this quality is thrown into the middle of a
mystery, as here, it adds to the suspense of the tale. The reader of a mystery novel
expects that the detective --- Davenport --- is going to solve the crime. Injecting this
quality of uncertainty into Davenport heightens the suspense, the feeling that, gee, this
guy keeps trying, but maybe he's not going to figure it out after all. And all the
suspects have been eliminated. Who done it? And, when the bodies of people who were close
to Alie'e start piling up, the question becomes, Who's Doin' It?
John Sandford gets multiple kudos here for creating an engrossing mystery in the police
procedural vein, while at the same time never losing sight of the fact that he has a
strong, complex central character with Lucas Davenport. A lesser writer might have let the
strong story overrun his strong character, or vice versa. Sandford very subtly maintains
the all-so-difficult balance, intertwining Davenport into the complex mix and moving him
right along with it. Not everything is resolved here; at the end of the day, few things
usually are. But Sandford raises enough questions, and leaves just enough of them
unanswered, to keep new and old readers alike coming back for the next PREY. Among the
questions Sandford will hopefully answer: What is a Lady Remington shaver used for, if not
for shaving? I think I know; I'll be reading future Davenport novels to find out.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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