Review: Gathering Prey (The Prey Series) by John Sandford

Gathering Prey by John Sandford
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What is the secret to keeping a long-running series successfully going for 25 books? Some of the challenges facing any author are keeping a character fresh and interesting and continuously having to come up with new, inventive and great story ideas.

John Sandford has certainly met these challenges in Gathering Prey, the #25 installment in his superb The Prey Series.

If you are a fan of this series like I am, you will not be disappointed in the latest story of the Lucas Davenport that we have seen grow and evolve both personally and professionally and come to know over a long period of time.

Lucas Davenport, Chief Investigator for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is working on a case when his adopted daughter, Letty asks him to help Skye, a Traveler, she had met a while back in San Francisco, with the disappearance of her Traveler companion. Skye also tells the story of a fellow Traveler named Pilate, who is the leader of a Charles Mason like group that is killing and torturing other Traveler members.
Lucas agrees to help look into these allegations and soon, together with Letty, becomes involved with solving the number of murders and disappearances of members of the Traveler groups.

The action never loses steam and Lucas travels to the Upper Peninsula, working with the small towns law enforcement to find and capture the ruthless killers.

Some of my thoughts:

The first chapter, where Letty meets Skye and her travelling companion in San Francisco and the interaction between the three was a bit weird. Would I feed two people singing for money and had never met before? Maybe, probably. Would I give them my telephone number? If I say no, you would probably say….why not??? Is it because they’re homeless…shame on you!!! No, that wasn’t it!! It was the fact that the whole interlude did not feel real or true to me….but one could say…look, Letty did that out of kindness to someone who has less than her! Okay, maybe!

The vivid depiction of the landscape absolutely stunning – the remoteness, the small and isolated small towns in the UP…..……

not knowing what the UP was…….looked it up, via Google naturally, and discovered it was Upper Peninsula….well, I learnt something new…

The characters in the story are described in a way that they feel real and are what one would expect of people to act and talk in that world.
I found the Juggalos part of the plot totally fascinating. At first, I thought that the whole thing was created in the author’s head……but no, these characters actually exist….

I had never ever of this sub-culture before…and yes, I did go and google it as well…..and how interesting was that…..

Sandford noted to blackfive.net,“The Juggalos are fans and followers of the group, “Insane Clown Posse.” They “travel” to see this group perform. They look like street people, but have bike packs, staffs, hiking boots, and a lot of the women have dogs. For awhile the FBI had them classified as a gang, but there is a lawsuit filed to declassify them. I guess the best description is for them to be considered a modern day hobo. They are not homeless and just “travel” around because they like it. The Juggalo subculture is split between violent and nonviolent factions. Some of the more violent ones have committed acts against the non-criminal ones.

I liked the relationship and interaction between Lucas and Letty.

Fast paced, suspense, humor, fantastic dialogue, realistic characters, dramatic landscapes, and some graphic violence make this a pretty good, no great read.

And one of my favorite quotes is from Weather, Luca’s wife saying to him as he’s about to leave home to go out and catch some more bad guys……

“Don’t get shot; it’d be really inconvenient for everybody.”

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