Shock Wave by John Sandford

Reviewed by Gerti

John Sandford has already written more than a half dozen Virgil Flowers’ novels, and I feel the need to show you why I love, love, love this character. John Sandford paints Flowers as a surfer-dude-looking detective with an attitude to match. His penchant for wearing vintage rock band T-shirts and charming the ladies belies his razor sharp skill at winkling out criminals. Given your own personal taste, that can leave you interested or high and dry.

But the gift of a really good writer is that even if you don’t like the protagonist, relate to him, or want to date him, the plots are peopled with other fascinating people, and in Sandford’s case, those other people are clever as hell. Witness a line from an angry book-store owner at a city council meeting: “You and that g-d crook you’re married to would sell your children for ten dollars and a rubber tire…” Or here again, from the billionaire owner of a Walmart analog chain of stores: “Virgil, we’re clean as a spinster’s skirt on this thing.” And with an ensemble cast like that, Sandford’s “Shock Wave” is pretty near irresistible.

This is really one of Sandford’s best works. The plot is amazingly complex, like Flowers himself, as Sandford runs a convoluted shell game with suspects in a series of bombings. He gets you breathing hard for one supposed villain, and then shows you how that fellow was only set up by the real bomber. And then he does it again. It’s a strip-tease of suspects, with Flowers constantly convincing you it’s one guy, and then getting a feeling that he’s been led astray. Then you’re off on the trail of another fellow who looks good to be the killer. And then Sandford pulls the rug out from under you again. It’s thrilling, and all-consuming. How can you put down a book like that?

I’ll summarize the plot quickly. Willard Pye owns a chain of Walmart-like stores, and plans to open another in tiny Butternut Falls, Minnesota. But first a bomb goes off at Pye’s birthday party, right before a board meeting. Then another goes off at the Butternut Falls work site. Before long, Virgil’s even got a pipe bomb go off in the boat he took with him to town to run the investigation, just so he can think while he fishes. Other people are killed by bombs, there is a scandal with the city council and the mayor who accepted payoffs from the large corporation to change some zoning. Everyone is sleeping with everyone else’s wife (except for Virgil, who gets dumped by his sheriff girlfriend, Lee Coakley) and Virgil has some real inspirational moments in the investigation. But the bomber is too smart for him for a long time, until he starts following the money…

It is rare for me to find books that are so good I want to read them again immediately, but “Shock Wave” is one of those books. I find it fascinating that Virgil befriended the bomber early, and want to re-read those scenes of their conversations for clues. One thing is certain, though. The strength of this “Shock Wave” will keep me following Virgil Flowers novels for some time to come.