Rules of Prey by John Sandford

Rules of Prey by John Sandford

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I've been on a mystery/thriller kick. I'm currently reading through Robert B. Parker's Spenser series, Janet Evanovich's number series (They just made a movie out of One for the Money, due out on January 27th). And so I picked up John Sandford's first book to sort of round out my reading rotation. I was excited to discover that there is a movie on this series too with Mark Harmon (from NCIS as Gibbs), playing Lucas Davenport. So I'll definitely be checking that out...

On to my review. Lucas Davenport plays a cop in Minneapolis who is hunting down a serial killer who calls himself Maddog. He has a numbered list of rules he leaves with every woman he's killed. Rules he lives by in order to not get caught. So ensues the chase of cat and mouse typical to every story in this genre with the good guy winning.

Of course that's not why we read the book, is it? We know how it will end.

We read to book to find out if we LIKE the character we will spend the next umpteen hours inside their head as we escape from our own lives to follow his / her chase for the bad guy. We evaluate their choices from our own, what lines we would, and they do cross. We read to find out if the author can really pull the magic trick of making us feel like we are really there. Can they engage all our senses, can they make our hearts race, can they pull us into specific moments and transform our humdrum for their fantastic? THAT is what takes us from the first to last page. Otherwise it's just a procedural, right?

In my assessment, this book does a fair job of that. Especially for his first book sold. It's a solid read that doesn't disappoint. But there is a niggling question of "Do I LIKE the character?"

Lucas Davenport is touted to be intelligent, a problem solver. But I honestly don't find the character to be very honorable. He's a womanizer who also takes the law into his own hands and covers up his own crimes. He irresponsibly gets one woman pregnant, and sets up another woman who is throwing herself at him to be bait for the bad guy. (She catches on and goes with it because she's a media hound herself but the fact that he sets her up without her consent or knowledge is still out there). Meanwhile he has another affair with a witness that he has tucked away in his upstate cabin. I don't like him. He has no honor. AND he's a game player who chooses to use other people as pawns for everything from catching a murderer to warming his bed. Oh yeah, and he's a professional game inventor, which sounds cool as long as you have your own set of rules to live by too, separating fact from fiction, you know?

I realize that every character needs an arc, a place to begin that he grows from. I get that, and will likely read a few more to find out if any of those bad choices he made in the first book have the kinds of consequences that will provoke change in future books. If not, I'll look for another series to pick up.

As for the quality of the book itself, it will keep you turning the pages - even though you know who the bad guy is early on.

I gave it three stars for now. I'll wait for more stars as I read further into the series.



View all my reviews