Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport, #30) (Prey, #30)

by John Sandford

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Masked Prey is the 30th (!!!) Lucas Davenport novel by John Sandford. Released 14th April 2020 by Penguin on their G.P. Putnam's Sons imprint, it's 406 pages and available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats.

This book is compellingly written and grabbed me from the first page. The format is honestly much the same: Davenport lives his life, interacts with the folks around him, solves a weird series of potential crimes which are currently baffling the mainstream investigation (this time inciting alt-right-lunatic-fringe wingnuts in the USA to violence against the children of high profile politicians). Sandford is such a gifted author technically and stylistically that it works very well.

I've seen other reviewers suggest that Sandford is failing to maintain his objectivity, or that he's pandering to the "social justice warriors" and I can see how they've come to that conclusion. The alt-right wingnuts are painted in the book as dangerously unstable and are shown in an unflattering light. I submit in rebuttal that those thankfully small portions of the American population *are* significantly shifting the bar of accepted social interaction and destabilizing the ground rules of congenial interaction by insisting on their "free-dumbs" at the cost of life and safety. Virtue signalling? Maybe, but also shining a light onto an increasingly distressing and dangerous problem. The current pandemic has shown quite clearly the difference in world societies' reactions to control the outfall of this crisis and the results are crystal clear comparing the USA to the rest of the world. I'm not sure what Mr. Sandford's lead time for plotting and writing a novel is, I can't imagine it's less than 6 months (he's averaged 3 books per annum for the last 30 years, but much of the total is short fiction). I don't find the timing of this book, or its themes, suspect. The people who are giving this book 1 star reviews are, I suspect, reacting to the unpleasant feeling of looking into a mirror and not liking what they see reflected there.

In a current climate of -so- much uncertainty, doubt, fear, and unpleasantness, knowing that Davenport is going to figure it out and (mostly) fix it in the next 390 pages is unquestionably escapist, but it's so therapeutic. Long live Davenport & co. Although it's the 30th book in the series, the quality of the writing, plotting, story arc, tension, and denouement are up to the series' general standard. It works fine as a standalone, new readers needn't be intimidated by the thought of needing to read the previous books.

Four stars. Enjoyable thriller from a master at the top of his game. (I'm not a professional literary critic, but I didn't notice anything to suggest that this was ghost written in any manner - and I have read all his other extant work - he seems to be perfectly willing to acknowledge when he's collaborating (c.f. Virgil Flowers series)).

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.