Audiobooks
Masked Prey

by John Sandford
Penguin Random House Audio, April 2020, $40

In John Sandford’s 30th novel in the Prey series, protagonist Lucas Davenport, a multimillionaire and therefore very independent US Marshal, is drawn into an investigation by, of all things, a teenage blogger and influencer, who discovers that one of her photos is decorating a neo-Nazi website that has not paid her for the privilege. The teeth-gratingly obnoxious little self-promoter is the daughter of a member of the US Senate Armed Services Committee and, since the FBI is helpless in a case where no crime has been committed, to whom can this country’s power brokers turn? None other than the freewheeling, boundary-pushing Davenport, a legend for always getting the job done. One of the things I like best about the series is the way the author (in reality Pulitzer Prize recipient John Camp) has allowed his hero to mature—from a skull-cracking, bed-hopping young Minneapolis PD detective in the 1990s to today’s more self-controlled, if still unorthodox, law enforcer and family man of 52. Ever more entertaining is Sandford’s ability to stay abreast of the zeitgeist, in this case noting the rise of teen influencers and, I suppose, neofascism. (The vilifying of the latter, not incidentally, seems to be costing him readers, if emails to Amazon.com are any indication. One of these unhappy former fans wonders why, in selecting the villains of the piece, Sandford couldn’t have substituted Muslims for members of the alt-right.)

This time Davenport’s investigation building blocks seem a little less sturdy than usual, but the conversations are typically smart and often funny, especially those involving Lucas’ assistants Bob and Rae. The action set pieces—shootouts in the main—are precise and swift. And the final twist is satisfyingly surprising. Richard Ferrone, with his throaty, hardboiled delivery, has been successful in capturing Davenport’s tough style and pragmatic sensibilities for a while now. He continues to tonally shift just enough to portray the sleuth’s desperate, addled prey; humorless and humorous politicians; the bemused, sarcastic Bob; and the novel’s females, from the plain-talking Rae to the chirpy Instagram-savvy mean girl who sets Davenport on this hazardous quest.

Dick Lochte
Teri Duerr
6946
Sandford
April 2020
masked-prey
40
Penguin Random House Audio