Righteous Prey: A Lucas Davenport & Virgil Flowers thriller

Product Information

When the third victim is killed in Minnetonka, Lucas and Virgil must find and stop "The Five" before more people die. Vivian Zhao has an idea. She knows five like-minded bored Bitcoin billionaires who need excitement in their lives; something like, say, killing a person who they feel needs to be murdered. Communicating with each other on the dark net and known to each other only by their airport identifiers, each identifies a person they deem fit for death. As they begin their killing spree, Zhao puts out press releases celebrating The Five and their deeds, not only killing unsavory people, but also donating untraceable Bitcoin donations to various charities. There are some political matters mentioned here. Although he doesn’t state any anti-Trump opinion there are references to people who are anti-Trump. Also at the end of the book Weather, the wife of Lucas Davenport, and Frankie, the wife of Virgil Flowers, are interviewed by the press. There are fourteen Virgil Flowers books to explore, with the most recent two crossing over from the Prey/Lucas Davenport series. For me, the magic in this one their great interactions together throughout the entire book. From beginning to end they constant banter made me laugh out loud in fun and easy enjoyment. It didn’t matter whether it was amongst themselves or while interacting with others like FBI agents Orish and Mallard, their thoughts and comments were worth the price of admission.

Lucas Davenport / Prey Series in Order by John Sandford Lucas Davenport / Prey Series in Order by John Sandford

Virgil is writing a mystery novel and so a couple of mystery writers are mentioned: John D. MacDonald, C.J.Box and Carl Hiaasen. Sandford also makes a veiled reference to another Twin Cities mystery writer that most people will identify as him. Virgil mentions that the cop in those mysteries never has to do paperwork. Several oil companies in Texas have reported thefts of crude, Colles tells her. He isn’t so much concerned with the oil as he is with the money: Who is selling the oil, and what are they doing with the profits? Rumor has it that a fairly ugly militia group might be involved. Colles wants to know if the money is going to them, and if so, what they’re planning.

Table of Contents

After a woman is murdered in the Twin Cities, Virgil Flowers and Lucas Davenport are sent in to investigate. And they soon have their hands full — the killings are smart and carefully choreographed, and with no apparent direct connection to the victims, The Five are virtually untraceable. But if anyone can destroy this group, it will be the dynamic team of Davenport and Flowers. In 2006, John Sandofrod penned the popular short story Lucy Had a List, which tells the chilling tale of a grammar-obsessed golf teacher and her very important list. Five millionaires meet at a Bitcoin conference and decide it might be a fun challenge to personally get rid of a few people who they think do not deserve to live for various reasons. What could go wrong?

Righteous Prey by John Sandford | Goodreads Righteous Prey by John Sandford | Goodreads

The first murder takes place in San Francisco. The Second in Houston. But when “The Five” strike for a third time in the Twin Cities, Davenport’s home town, they get his attention, and when he pulls Flowers in to help him investigate, our dynamic duo is off and running, trying to take down the vigilante group before murders take place. However, their hunt for these vigilante killers will not follow any kind of typical investigation and may likely cause them serious or deadly harm. We’re going to murder people who need to be murdered.” So begins a press release from a mysterious group known only as “The Five,” shortly after a vicious predator is murdered in San Francisco. The Five is believed to be made up of vigilante killers who are very bored… and very rich. They target the worst of society — rapists, murderers, and thieves — and then use their unlimited resources to offset the damage done by those who they’ve killed, donating untraceable Bitcoin to charities and victims via the dark net. The Five soon become the most popular figures on social media, a modern-day Batman…though their motives may not be entirely pure. Davenport begins the series as a detective with the Minnesota Police Department. Still, when a scandal forces him to resign, he becomes a government deputy chief in charge of his intelligence unit. Sandford’s books are always enjoyable because they are mostly based in the Twin Cities of Minnesota where I have lived for almost all my life. We read about local locations. In this case Lucas and Virgil have breakfast at a well-known delicatessen in St Paul. I was planning on going there to have breakfast while I wrote this review. I wanted to ask them if I could sit in the same booth as Lucas and Virgil did.But they aren’t just partners in crime; they’re partners in love, too, and as their series develops, so does their sexual chemistry. You can always rely on Sandford to serve up an imaginative plot, but with this novel I think he outdid himself. Two other things make Righteous Prey a notable addition to the series. First, it contains a lot of current events like the waning COVID pandemic, the growing prominence of Bitcoin, and current growing division and animosity between conservatives and liberals in the United States. The other is the side story about Virgil Flowers and his budding side gig as a crime fiction author. Both add interest to the story. This is vintage Davenport with a full slate of psychopathic evil doers and Lucas treating every murder investigation as a competition to be won. A complimentary copy was provided by G.P. Putnam's Sons via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.