Item Specifics - Fiction Books
Author: John Sandford
Category: Mystery, Thriller
Publisher: Putnam Pub Group
Detective
ISBN: 0399147284
Additional Information about Chosen Prey
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Synopsis
The latest entry in Sandford's series finds detective Lucas Davenport back in Gothic surroundings: this time, it's an abandoned lot in Minneapolis which someone has turned into an impromptu graveyard for murdered young women. Davenport soon becomes convinced that the killer is local art professor James Qatar. But the wily Qatar is not easy to pin down.

Size
Length: 357 pages
Height: 9.5 in.
Width: 6.5 in.
Thickness: 1.5 in.
Weight: 23.2 oz.

Industry reviews
"CHOSEN PREY is terrific, packed with detail and attitude without getting logy."
USA Today (05/17/2001)

"While CHOSEN PREY is not the best of this series, it's still worth picking up."
Chicago Tribune - Chris Petrakos (05/20/2001)

"[T]he reading is great. Wit and imagination never flag; romantic relationships unfold predictably, perverted ones rather worse; wheels within political wheels don't jar; the cops are effective and fun; the prose is absorbing and the suspense consistent."
Los Angeles Times - Eugen Weber (06/10/2001)Condition: Used
Format: Hardcover
Publication Year: 2001

About Your Book

Chosen Prey

The Lucas Davenport thrillers have become an annual, much-anticipated phenomenon, and it's not hard to see why. Each time out, Sandford combines a variety of plot elements into a slick, furiously paced narrative that is cunningly constructed and virtually impossible to set aside. Chosen Prey, the 12th entry in this remarkably consistent series, finds the hard-edged Minnesota homicide detective spearheading yet another convoluted investigation, this one aimed at bringing down a serial killer -- and sexual psychopath -- known as the Gravedigger. As we learn at the very outset, the Gravedigger is James Quatar, an effete, deeply disturbed art historian with a penchant for blondes who remind him of his mother. Several of these iconic blondes have served as unwitting models for James's distinctive brand of pornographic, mix-and-match computer art. And several have simply disappeared from the face of the earth. As the novel opens, the body of Qatar's most recent victim surfaces in a park on the outskirts of Minneapolis. When the park turns out to be a mass graveyard containing eight more victims -- all blonde, all with an affinity for the visual arts -- a statewide manhunt ensues. Cutting crisply back and forth between the demented perspective of James Qatar and the increasingly frantic perspective of the Minneapolis/St. Paul police departments, Chosen Prey offers a satisfying demonstration of Sandford's by now familiar virtues: brisk, no-frills prose, pungent dialogue, authoritative scene-setting, and a vivid gallery of characters from both sides of the law. These include Davenport himself, Detective Sergeant Marcy Sherrill (who is just returning to action after her near-fatal wounding in Easy Prey), and Davenport's on-again, off-again girlfriend, Dr. Weather Karkinnen, who has now assumed a dominant role in Lucas's always complicated domestic life. Effective new characters include the Gravedigger himself, James Qatar; his voyeuristic paramour (and prospective victim), Ellen Barstad; and Terry Marshall, a veteran law enforcement officer with an intensely personal stake in the investigation. Chosen Prey easily meets the rigorous standards of its predecessors, and will no doubt provide Sandford's legion of fans with an irresistible, high-adrenaline good time. (Bill Sheehan) Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has been published by Subterranean Press .