Certain Prey: 10 (Prey Novel) - Softcover

Sandford, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425274314 ISBN 13: 9780425274316

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2014

Synopsis

"One of [the] best" (Orlando Sentinel) Lucas Davenport Novels--now with a New Introduction by the Author.

Clara Rinker is twenty-eight, beautiful, charmingly southern--and the best hit woman in the business. She just goes about her business, collects her money, and goes home. Her latest hit sounds simple: a defense attorney wants a rival eliminated. No problem--until a witness survives. Clara usually knows how to deal with loose ends: cut them off, one by one, until they're all gone. This time, there's one loose end that's hard to shake.

Lucas Davenport has no idea of the toll this case is about to take on him. Clara knows his weak spots. She knows how to penetrate them, and how to use them. And when a woman like Clara has the advantage, no one is safe.

About this title

Review:

In the 10th instalment of his popular Prey series, John Sandford (a.k.a. John Camp) pits his popular antihero, Lucas Davenport, against a pair of cunning killers unlike any he has encountered before.

Attorney Carmel Loan is preternaturally beautiful, intelligent and ambitious. When she becomes infatuated with fellow barrister Hale Allen, she isn't going to let a little thing like his being married get in her way. A quick meeting with an ex-client sets up the hit on Hale's wife, Barbara. The professional killer, Clara Rinker, is one of the best in the business. Smart, attractive, with a gentle Southern drawl, no one would suspect her of being a top Mafia hit man ... er, hit person. When she takes the Allen assignment, she figures it will be easy money for a day's work. But things go wrong from the beginning. Loan's ex-client made a tape of the meeting, and is shaking her down for money. Worse, the shooting of a witness--a cop--brings deputy inspector Lucas Davenport into the case. Somehow Davenport has not only linked Loan to the killing, but seems to have a lead on Rinker as well. Carmel and Clara team up to clean up the loose ends, which includes getting Davenport off their backs by whatever means necessary.

Like all of Sandford's books, Certain Prey is a fast and furious ride. Fans of previous Prey books will find Davenport a little older, a little more wary, but no less sharp-witted and determined. Though parts of the plot may stretch the limits of credulity and the dialogue falls a little flat in places, this is still a wonderfully crafted thriller, possibly one of the best of 1999. Certain Prey cements Sandford's standing among such luminaries as James Lee Burke, Lawrence Block and Thomas Harris. --Perry Atterberry

Review:

Praise for John Sandford's Prey Novels

"Relentlessly swift...genuinely suspenseful...excellent."--Los Angeles Times

"Sandford is a writer in control of his craft."--Chicago Sun-Times

"Excellent...compelling...everything works."--USA Today

"Grip-you-by-the-throat thrills...a hell of a ride."--Houston Chronicle

"Crackling, page-turning tension...great scary fun."--The New York Daily News

"Enough pulse-pounding, page-turning excitement to keep you up way past bedtime."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"One of the most engaging characters in contemporary fiction."--Detroit News

"Positively chilling."--St. Petersburg Times

"Just right for fans of The Silence of the Lambs."--Booklist

"One of the most horrible villains this side of Hannibal."--Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Ice-pick chills...excruciatingly tense...a double-pumped roundhouse of a thriller."--Kirkus Reviews

About this edition

• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0425274314
• ISBN 13: 9780425274316
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416