Holy Ghost by John Sandford

The 11th book in the Fuckin' Flowers series. Virgil is right up there with Lucas on my favorite character list. And Sandford is one of my favorite, will-never-miss-a-book authors.

It could be the sinus infection, but even near the end, I couldn't figure out what Flowers knew. Jenkins and Shrake popped in for a bit and even they were at a loss until they got the whole crazy scheme from Flowers. When we finally were told, I was...skeptical. I think I wanted to end this on a grander scale, for all the legwork and dead ends that had happened.

We first have some schemers, including the mayor, who wanted to bring more money back into Wheatfield. So they scared up a Virgin Mary sighting in their church. Lo and behold, all the religious goobers came flocking to Wheatfield to see the Virgin. Coincidentally, the Mayor (Holland) and his genius sidekick (Skinner), bought up some storefront to sell Eats and Souvenirs of the Virgin. They are making a bankload of money when a sniper shows up.

Holland calls in Flowers to find the sniper before he kills someone. So far, sniper has had bad aim and is just wounding people, but he gets lucky soon enough. Weirdly enough, we never got perspective from the sniper's point of view, which we normally get. This was a strict POV of Flowers trying to catch the sniper.

So many dead ends, so much confusion. Even when Flowers figured it out, without telling us, I was still confused. His explanation and the motive seemed a bit weak, but I'll admit I still loved the book. Flowers doesn't need to be in mortal danger every book and this was a definite whodunit.

Deep Freeze by John Sandford

Another Fuckin' Flowers book, number 10 to be exact. Although it does seem like his nickname of That Fuckin' Flowers is being phased out and he's just Virgil now. I'm ok with that.

Virgil is called to Trippton, MN, which you may remember from Deadline, book number 8. This time the body of one of the richest women in Trippton has been "caught" by a fisherman. Except, we already know who killed Gina Hemming, because the first chapter introduced us to Bug Boy, David Birkmann and showed us the murder. But wait, David didn't throw Gina's body in the frozen river. He staged an accident. So.....how did she get there?

Naturally, we have to have another case thrown in to make Virgil's life more complicated. Margaret Griffin shows up in Trippton, an ex-L.A. cop, paid by Mattel, to come put a stop to counterfeit Barbies. Not JUST Barbies. These Barbie's have a special...."feature". As do the Ken dolls. Whew. Who thinks this stuff up?

I really enjoyed how Virgil handled this one. I had to re-read his solving of the murder and was damn impressive at how his brain works.

Fully recommend this one, no need to even start at the beginning of the series.

Escape Clause by John Sandford

Do you remember when Virgil Flowers aka That Fuckin' Flowers was just a bit player in the Lucas Davenport series? Flowers is already on his 9th book, y'all!

Lucas makes a VERY brief appearance in this, the rest is Flowers holding his own. I will admit that when I first realized, by Chapter 2, that this was about missing tigers from a zoo, I almost put it down. How exciting can that be?

Turns out, pretty damn exciting.

There are actually several things happening at the same time:

Missing Amur tigers from the Minnesota zoo

Frankie's sister coming to stay and wanting to interview migrant workers in a pickle factory

Pickle factory owner getting angry and sending out goons

Animal activists aiming to kill people.

Lots of folks dying

It started to get a little twisty and you have to remember which parts affect which case but I read this in a day and it was a pretty good ride. I really appreciate the Flower series. My only complaint with this book is that the characters seemed a little.....cartoony. Flowers was still awesome, but once Sparkle and Father Bill came into the picture, well, they were caricatures. If I want cartoony characters, I'll hit up the Stephanie Plum series (which I do, frequently). I just don't want them in my Sandford books.

Deadline by John Sandford

It's another Fuckin' Flowers book!!!!!!

If he wasn't just a character in a book, I would marry that man.

So Virgil is on a dognapping case, which actually upset me more than the people who were getting killed. Poor pups. Flowers is with his friend, Johnson Johnson, and trying to find the dogs that have been stolen before they are sold off to bunchers for medical laboratories.

But then....

They stumble on to a meth lab operation that means getting the DEA involved and putting the dognapping case on the back burner.

But then....

A body of a local newspaper writer shows up dead in a ditch, shot 3 times in the back


And then more bodies pile up, the school board is unraveling as Flowers gets closer and closer to their embezzlement scheme and, seriously, they have no issues with killing people who get in the way. I hope real life school boards aren't this blood thirsty and money hungry.

Without giving away anything, the action with all 3 cases ramps up to high gear and made me take a longer lunch than usual because I just couldn't stop reading.

I love that Flowers.

Storm Front by John Sandford

And here's another Fuckin' Flowers book. Can I say I love Virgil?

I downloaded the audiobook from Audible.com because I was too busy knitting for the Ravellenic games to actually *gasp* pick up a book. I needed my hands free for this one...

Because it's an audio book, I have no idea of the spelling of anything in this book. Somehow I grabbed my first ever audio of a Sandford book and it's filled with Israeli and Lebanese names. So pardon me if things are misspelled in this review...

Elijah Jones is a religious man who has been on many archeological digs in Israel and just so happens to find an artifact that could change the biblical face of things. So he naturally smuggles it out of Israel and straight down the road from Virgil Flowers. Lucas Davenport, his boss and main guy of the Prey series, assigns Virgil to pair with an Israeli agent to get the stone back.

Things get much worse as Jones puts the stone up for auction and many "bad guys" come in to town to place their bids. Bad guys is in quotes simply because it felt more comical than scary. Even with the Turks who cut off testicles....still seemed more funny. The baddies just weren't....bad.

The search for the stone wasn't as nail-biting and there wasn't a lot of mystery.

This sounds like I was unhappy with the book and that's not true. I still love Flowers and it was a new take on what he can do (or who he can do). I'm happy it didn't get all biblical/Dan Brown like and it was a good story.

I was happy to go along for this less-bumpy ride.

Heat Lightning by John Sandford

Sandford is turning into one of my favorite writers. I've been a fan of Davenport and reluctantly tried his other series. I didn't think he could pull off the Davenport intensity with other characters.

But he does. I was wrong!! Heat Lightning is the second Virgil Flowers novel. Flowers (or "that fuckin' Flowers") works for Davenport in the Twin Cities BCA. This case covers a series of related murders where the victim is placed at the foot of a veteran's monument with a lemon stuck in their mouths. Sounds related.

Flowers is a 30ish guy with an affinity for band t-shirts as his uniform. He's a pretty likable character and he interacts really well with Lucas and the rest of the BCA.


Overall, a good mystery with great characters.