Scan barcode
A review by dotorsojak
Bad Blood by John Sandford
3.0
3.25 stars
Not the best Virgil Flowers, but a good one. The who, what, when, how of the first murders are all answered in the first few chapters, which is kind of cool.
The daughters of one of the murdered men are secondary or even tertiary characters, yet they are drawn well and I wished I could've heard more about them. The widow, their mother, is less interesting. Lots of religion here and one almost expects JS (Sandford) to draw the connection between the religious nuts in this book and the Church of Latter Day Saints, but he never does. Along this line of speculation I wondered in reading if JS's basic idea for the bad guys was influenced by the Oneida Community, the 19th century group with the unusual sexual practices.
This is a disturbing portrait of religion and sexuality (and violence). I'm not sure the obligatory violent ending really does justice to some of the issues JS raises. The bad people here are really, really bad, and the creation of villains is undoubtedly something JS excells at. On the other hand, even though the villains get theirs, I'm not sure the condign revenge works best for this novel. For example, Flowers doesn't usually solve his cases with guns, but here he does. Hmmm.
Not the best Virgil Flowers, but a good one. The who, what, when, how of the first murders are all answered in the first few chapters, which is kind of cool.
The daughters of one of the murdered men are secondary or even tertiary characters, yet they are drawn well and I wished I could've heard more about them. The widow, their mother, is less interesting. Lots of religion here and one almost expects JS (Sandford) to draw the connection between the religious nuts in this book and the Church of Latter Day Saints, but he never does. Along this line of speculation I wondered in reading if JS's basic idea for the bad guys was influenced by the Oneida Community, the 19th century group with the unusual sexual practices.
This is a disturbing portrait of religion and sexuality (and violence). I'm not sure the obligatory violent ending really does justice to some of the issues JS raises. The bad people here are really, really bad, and the creation of villains is undoubtedly something JS excells at. On the other hand, even though the villains get theirs, I'm not sure the condign revenge works best for this novel. For example, Flowers doesn't usually solve his cases with guns, but here he does. Hmmm.