Easy Prey, by John Sandford Book Review
Tagline: A Lucas Davenport novel: Book 11 of 32
Paperback, 2000 — Mystery, Police Procedural
Who this could appeal to: Readers of the old National Enquirer
It’s another Lucas Davenport mystery! He’s the detective who lives up in Minnesota with all the snow and ice fishing and stuff. Usually a snowmobile on the ice appears at some point.
I haven’t read him – or most books in general – in many years. The intrigue of the internet took top spot, as did my career in cartoons. But then, one fine day. we all got evicted (by Taylor Equities), since we didn’t have rent control here in Los Angeles, and a lot of violent things happened.
I moved around. A LOT. Still unstable. When I read this mystery I had just moved into one of my favorite places: a room in a house in Los Feliz with my own pool! And a big poodle to walk every night! However, the wifi was bad there – all those huge trees around – so I still had some hours to dig into a book.
Easy Prey was more of a police procedural than others in the series. Boring. Lucas is called in when the star of the movie being filmed in Mpls is murdered. Then another body shows up.
But the main problem of #11 in the series was that somebody was writing about Hollywood who doesn’t really know much about Hollywood. Reading about imaginary people on a movie set is like watching a high school play. Please stop it.
Don’t get me wrong – I worked some years on film sets, and spent many happy hours there! Miss them. But the majority of the cast and crew weren’t these flamboyant, lying, promiscuous, drug-dealing bisexuals. When everyone is dressed in neon, all the characters look the same..
Of course, since Lucas Devonport is a pretty sexy guy there are a couple of interesting women in his life. Unfortunately, in this novel we never get to see any kind of love affair, either! We see the Weather girl that he is obviously in love with for about 10 seconds. And his spiritual gf, the Nun.
It’s all about the mystery and the police. It’s OK if you want to skip this one.
I rated it 2 stars. Oops: came out 1.7. That works.
Spoilers!
A few months later and I can’t remember who the killer was.
Other Reader Opinions of Easy Prey
Goodreads rated it 4.1
Kirkus: no rating
Beneath the slime, there’s a decent whodunit, but it takes real digging to unearth it. “I don’t know,” muses Davenport…
I’m re-reading this series, and so far, this is my least favorite Prey novel. It’s about a model being murdered, thus “high fashion”. This isn’t Sandford’s strong point, e.g., among other things, early on, several times he uses the word “courtier” rather than “couturier”. Also, I found the plot confusing; there were too many characters to keep track of…I like a lot of the other characters in the Prey Series, but in this book, Lucas comes across as nothing more than a promiscuous, narcissistic, indecisive jerk.
Didn’t I just finish telling you there was no sex in the book? Not according to this Amazon reader! 🙂
Lucas is a real man whore in this one.
From another:
I’d say this is the best yet; the story is complicated enough to keep you off base, the characters are fun, Davenport’s querks are just real enough to be plausible, overall, thoroughly enjoyable.
Enjoy with
Some old movie mags
Your old high school yearbook!
Where to find
Your friendly local library. Free!
Powell’s – Largest Indie bookstore
Barnes & Noble – Usually one around
Amazon – fast
Set painter in studio Art Depts. Member Scriptwriters Network, script analyst.
Author, 2 hardcopy books, Barnes & Noble Calendar.
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- Still Alice (2014) ~ Psychology Movie Review ~ Julianne Moore - January 25, 2023
- The Other Emily ~ Dean Koontz - January 23, 2023
