Deadline by John Sandford

Reviewed by Gerti

My John Sandford obsession has been going on for a few weeks now, but until this book, “Deadline,” I had sought out books with protagonist Lucas Davenport. While I will not stop reading the Sanford “Prey” series in which Lucas is the hero until I’ve read them all, I’m gonna put those on hold until I’ve finished all the Sandford books about Davenport’s goofy subordinate at the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in Minnesota, a man named Virgil Flowers.

Lucas is rich and suave and talented at what he does, which is track down bad guys. Virgil’s tracking skills are almost as good, but he is flat out funny (which I really like in a man!) and his friends, at least those he makes in “Deadline”, are comedy gold. They run from the curiously named “Johnson Johnson” (whose parents were obsessed with boat motors, which is why his brother is named Mercury), to backwoods savant Muddy (whose musician father is obsessed with, you guessed it, Muddy Waters), who is helping Virgil track down some dog-nappers. Sandford finds a way to make the most bizarre details sound authentic.

A book about a bunch of low-rents kidnapping dogs has no right to be as entertaining as this novel is. But Sandford is an awesome writer whose stories and characters take the best aspects of an author like John Grisham, and add just a sprinkling of the ridiculous. So you’ve got a fascinating, unpredictable storyline, enhanced by a troop of characters who would not be out of place in an old-fashioned freak show. And it’s the unique twist that Sandford gives these characters, their quirks and shameless individuality, that makes the book seem so real, and that ultimately makes it “the most fun I have had reading in a long time.” Yes. I’m quoting the critic from the Huffington Post, because he’s so right!

While it seems as though the stolen dogs will provide the crime story here, the dog thieves are also cooking some meth in their backwoods hideaway, and one of them gets picked off by an even nastier group of people – the local school board, which is working overtime to get rid of evidence of their crime – stealing millions from the annual budget. Ex-reporter Sandford is spot on as he describes how the group of middle-class achievers on the board vote, after their official business is handled, to kill the newsman on their trail. The juxtaposition is genius!

Sandford is clever and his plots are intricate, with humor an added bonus. His characters seem authentic, whether he’s writing about police, politicians, or the good old boys in this hilly region of Minnesota. Don’t miss “Deadline”! It’s the most fun you can have with a book in your hand, as Virgil Flowers might say.