A gang of bumbling bikers have robbed the hospital’s pharmacy – accidentally killing the pharmacist while doing so – at the direction of a drug-addled hospital insider. Lucas Davenport and his crew are drawn into the investigation, and Lucas has a personal stake in the outcome as his physician wife Weather works at the hospital, and may be a witness able to identify at least one of the perps.
“Storm Prey” is Sanford’s twentieth novel in the Lucas Davenport series. First, the good news.
The story rocks along in an engaging manner, involving the reader not only in the crime that Lucas is on course to solve, but also in the fates of a pair of twins conjoined at the head at birth whom Lucas’s wife Weather is trying to surgically separate.
The two plot lines progress in tandem, and are great counterpoints to each other. We also see the protagonist of one of Sanford’s other series – Virgil Flowers – involved in this story in a peripheral role, yet another fun element.
The bad guys are a mixed bag of bumblers, druggies, and a sociopathic stone killer wandering through the story, bumping into each other with conflicting motivations and goals. The investigation almost solves itself for Lucas as these dimwits try to outsmart each other in avoiding capture, and getting away with the loot.
The “Prey” novels are always a fun ride through the roller-coaster criminal landscape, and this book is no exception.
BUT… and now the bad news. In a couple of scenes, Lucas thinks back to cases earlier in his career which were actually the stories of the earliest Davenport novels, and that reminded me – a fan from the first book lo so many years ago – that the early Davenport was actually a much darker, more complex character who faced much more challenging foes. Those early novels were complex thrillers with heavy undertones and psychological shadings, all of which are missing from the series nowadays. It’s transformed into more of a procedural along the lines of the Ed McBain 87th Precinct books.
So, still four stars, because it’s fun for what it is. But I do remember when the “Prey” series was solid five star material, and I miss that level of achievement.
