Twisted Prey

Starred review from March 12, 2018
At the start of bestseller Sandford’s thoroughly entertaining 28th novel featuring Lucas Davenport (after 2017’s Golden Prey), political consultant Cecily Whitehead is driving Porter Smalls, a former U.S. senator from Minnesota, back to Washington, D.C., from his cabin in West Virginia when a pickup truck plows into their vehicle, knocking it off the road down a steep hill. Smalls suffers only a bloody nose, but Whitehead dies. Smalls believes this was an assassination attempt organized by Sen. Taryn Grant, who used a shady operative to plant child pornography on his computer in their senate race two years earlier, which Grant narrowly won. Convinced that she views him as an obstacle to her planned run for the presidency, Smalls asks his friend Davenport, now a U.S. marshal, for help. Davenport, who’s certain that Grant has committed three murders but doesn’t have the proof, is only too happy to get another crack at her. Davenport and Grant, aided by their respective allies, engage in a deadly cat-and-mouse game that will keep the reader turning the pages up to the exciting climax. This long-running series shows no sign of losing steam. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM.

Starred review from June 25, 2018
Sandford’s 28th Lucas Davenport novel, enhanced by an appropriately gruff narration by Ferrone, pits the lawman against an old foe: the beautiful and wealthy sociopath Senator Taryn Grant. Davenport was unable to stop the three-times murderer from winning her senate seat in Silken Prey (2013). Now, as she sets her sights on the presidency, he’s hoping to right that wrong. Assisting him is Senator Porter Smalls, another character from the earlier book, who’s at the top of Grant’s current hit list. Voice actor Ferrone presents Davenport as hardboiled and unyielding on the job, tender with his family, and relaxed with his pals (like the author’s other series lead, Virgil Flowers, who drops by for a cameo). Smalls sounds eager to assist, though understandably nervous and on edge. Grant speaks with almost unrelieved, hissing fury. Assassin Jack Parrish, who works for Grant, is a stoic professional, outwardly unruffled, though a flatness in his delivery suggests he’s not amused by the threats and insults she aims at him. Ferrone’s reading helps make this outing one of the best of the series. A Putnam hardcover.