Scan barcode
A review by yevolem
Phantom Prey by John Sandford
3.0
Phantom Prey is the second lowest rated in the series on Goodreads and it shows, relatively anyway. Based on the ratings that the rest of the books in the series have there may not be any other duds, though I expect there will be a few more yet to come.
This case has three investigations going on, though it's initially to believed to be two, hence the phantom title. One of the investigations is an irrelevant b-plot that's dropped in at intervals, seemingly only for sexual innuendo. I think it would've been better if it were omitted. The initial murder that starts the case is even less than that. The twists weren't as they should've been.
Aside from the protagonist, none of the characters were developed well this time. That's a shame, because they're usually at least amusing and interesting. I think there have been less and less recurring supporting characters. Davenport is an interesting character and makes for a good protagonist, but he's not even half of what I enjoy about the series. I'll have to eventually look at it more, but I'm almost certain that the main difference between how much I enjoy any one book in this series is based on how many developed supporting characters there are and how well developed the antagonist is.
I wonder why Sandford chose to do two books in a row with similarities in more than names, as the previous entry was Invisible Prey. The central conceit of both being, "What aren't we seeing?". In both cases the criminals were hidden in plain sight.
This seems to be another yet turning point for Lucas Davenport, or at least it's written that way. Whether it'll follow through is a different matter. After eighteen books and nearly being killed in a lot of them, and killing more than that, he begins to seriously wonder how many more times he can get lucky and whether he wants to push that luck any longer. His wife tells him that his survival goes beyond luck, though not in a religious way, which may be a nod to his plot armor.
In what I wrote about a previous book, I said that I was very surprised that a brief part of it took place in a location that I lived a town away from for a few years. Well, I was also born there, and went to University there, so it was a meaningful place. This one though offhandedly references an even smaller and more rural town that I'm extremely familiar with. After I finished reading I went back over the passage and realized that due to my familiarity with the area that I had misunderstood. The reference being made by the author was a couple years out of date, but that's understandable. I had thought the reference to a hundred years of purgatory was supposed to be a statement of contempt since that's the sort of place it is, rather than the more obvious allusion to the supermax prison that used to be there.
Starting from the next book I'll only be reading one entry each month, rather than the basically weekly as I've been doing. I should finish what's out of the series by the end of next year. I haven't been paying much attention to how many and often I've reading, so I'm somewhat surprised this is already the eighteenth. This isn't the longest series I've read, but it's certainly the quickest I've read of any series of similar length.
Rating: 2.5/5
This case has three investigations going on, though it's initially to believed to be two, hence the phantom title. One of the investigations is an irrelevant b-plot that's dropped in at intervals, seemingly only for sexual innuendo. I think it would've been better if it were omitted. The initial murder that starts the case is even less than that. The twists weren't as they should've been.
Aside from the protagonist, none of the characters were developed well this time. That's a shame, because they're usually at least amusing and interesting. I think there have been less and less recurring supporting characters. Davenport is an interesting character and makes for a good protagonist, but he's not even half of what I enjoy about the series. I'll have to eventually look at it more, but I'm almost certain that the main difference between how much I enjoy any one book in this series is based on how many developed supporting characters there are and how well developed the antagonist is.
I wonder why Sandford chose to do two books in a row with similarities in more than names, as the previous entry was Invisible Prey. The central conceit of both being, "What aren't we seeing?". In both cases the criminals were hidden in plain sight.
This seems to be another yet turning point for Lucas Davenport, or at least it's written that way. Whether it'll follow through is a different matter. After eighteen books and nearly being killed in a lot of them, and killing more than that, he begins to seriously wonder how many more times he can get lucky and whether he wants to push that luck any longer. His wife tells him that his survival goes beyond luck, though not in a religious way, which may be a nod to his plot armor.
In what I wrote about a previous book, I said that I was very surprised that a brief part of it took place in a location that I lived a town away from for a few years. Well, I was also born there, and went to University there, so it was a meaningful place. This one though offhandedly references an even smaller and more rural town that I'm extremely familiar with. After I finished reading I went back over the passage and realized that due to my familiarity with the area that I had misunderstood. The reference being made by the author was a couple years out of date, but that's understandable. I had thought the reference to a hundred years of purgatory was supposed to be a statement of contempt since that's the sort of place it is, rather than the more obvious allusion to the supermax prison that used to be there.
Starting from the next book I'll only be reading one entry each month, rather than the basically weekly as I've been doing. I should finish what's out of the series by the end of next year. I haven't been paying much attention to how many and often I've reading, so I'm somewhat surprised this is already the eighteenth. This isn't the longest series I've read, but it's certainly the quickest I've read of any series of similar length.
Rating: 2.5/5