Golden Prey

Lucas Davenport, Book 27

By: John Sandford

Narrated by: Richard Ferrone

A drug-cartel counting house gets robbed in Biloxi, Mississippi, and suitcases full of cash disappear, leaving behind five bodies, including that of a six-year-old girl.

Davenport takes the case, which quickly spirals out of control, as cartel assassins compete with Davenport to find the Dixie Hicks shooters who knocked over the counting house.

Things get ugly real 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.

©2017 John Sandford (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Top level Action thriller

Just what you want from a Prey thriller.
Action from the get go. Davenport at his best.

Least Favourite Of The Series

Meh. I like the Davenport novels, but this isn't one of the good ones.

As many have pointed out, it's pure chase--nobody has to do any serious detecting or thinking. In addition, it's got the techno find because the GPS function on cell phones pretty much keeps the bad guys in Davenport's sight. The other cops that Davenport teams up with are pretty flat and wooden.

And Sandford's sense of place and the site of the big shootout is confusing at best. I defy anyone to visualize or draw me a map of where the shootout takes place or what the arrangement of buildings there actually look like. Sandford must be working from a map or a set of photos, but he certainly can't relate those to us in any helpful way. The layout of the shootout is the real mystery here, and it's annoying as hell.

Finally, the plot device where Davenport calls his contact in the Marshall's Service whenever he needs to find out where the bad guys are seems like a cop-out (pun intended). I think Sandford has written much better books than this. I got so bored with the chase thing I opted out with an 1.30 hours to go.

Richard Ferrone was excellent with the delivery of the story