Holy Ghost

Something About Mary

In John Sandford’s eleventh Virgil Flowers novel, Holy Ghost, the investigator is faced with an elusive sniper in a newly prosperous town.

Wardell Holland, the mayor of the beleaguerd town on Wheatfield, who had lost a foot in Afghanistan, spends his time literally shooting flies, till precocious teenager John Jacob Skinner comes up with a fraudulent but harmless scheme to alter the town’s fortunes. When the Virgin Mary appears in the town’s church, the devout flock to Wheatfield. The direct beneficiaries are Holland and Skinner, whose new store is right opposite the church.

Then two people are shot in apparently random attacks, and Wheatfield is in danger of going losing all its recent gains.. Flowers of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, is summoned to help solve the case. He reluctantly leaves his pregnant girlfriend Frankie (quite a character, but she has little to do in this book) and drive to Wheatfield.

When the gun used in the killing is identified, its owner, Glen Andorra, turns up dead, shot in his home, with one of his own guns—of which has plenty, since he runs Wheatfield’s shooting rage. That makes one thing clear, the killer is from the town, and knew Andorra. Virgil believes that if he can find the motive, he will be able to catch the killer. The smartalecky Skinner is sure that the motive is money, but whose money, and who gains in a cash-strapped town? Holland is, of course, worried about the financial implications if the religious tourists are scared way by the sniper.

Sandford populates the novel with a cast of amusing characters—the top being Holland’s mother, who runs a café with such inedible food that Flowers and the other cops who land up for another case, have to survive on packaged junk from Holland and Skinner’s store, which also ends up being the cops’ headquarters. The dialogue is witty, the wisecracks fly thick and fast; the only small problem is that track that leads to the killer is not quite linked to the humorous set-up, but that does not take away from the enjoyment of the novel. John Sandford is, as Stephen King is quoted saying, “one of the great novelists of all time!' High praise indeed from the master of horror and suspense.

Holy Ghost

By John Sandford

Publisher: Putnam

Pages: 400