Gals And Dolls
Virgil Flowers, used to be the
sidekick of Lucas Davenport, hero of John Sandford’s ‘Prey’ series. Then, about ten years ago, the writer gave him a
series of his own. Flowers works with Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension, and hangs out with bunch of colourful cohorts when he is not
working on a case.
In Deep Freeze, the killer is revealed in the first chapter, so it’s
not the who or why but the how he did it that is at the centre of the novel. On
the night of her 25th high school reunion Gina Hemming is fished out
of Trippton’s frozen river. Hemming was a rich and powerful woman in the small
town and many people had reason to kill her, as Virgil Flowers finds when he
starts to investigate. In a previous novel, Flowers had exposed the corrupt
school board as well as a dog-napping ring in the town, so he is a bit of a
hero there.
The investigation is routine,
but there is another mystery to solve. Who is making a range of pornographic
Barbie and Ken dolls? Private detective
Margaret Griffin arrives from Los Angeles to hunt for the culprit. Everyone
knows the leader of the ring is Virgil’s former classmate Jesse McGovern, but
since she is providing employment in a town on the verge of economic ruin,
nobody wants to turn her in. In fact, Flowers gets beaten up by a bunch of
women and is forced to go about his work with a broken nose and a blue nose
guard, for which he gets teased a lot.
The best
part of Sandford’s books is the humour-- the characters are funny, the dialogue
crackling and Virgil Flowers a very likeable cop.
Deep Freeze
By John
Sandford
Publisher: Putnam
Pages: 391
No comments:
Post a Comment