A review by iggy63
Easy Prey by John Sandford

3.0

Not my favorite of the first 11 I've read. It's the longest, I think, which would be fine if it wasn't a bit tedious. In most of the books up to this point, we know who the killer is early on, so the books are a good balance of points of view. We get Lucas and his team figuring out how to catch the killer of a high profile fashion model, and the killer trying to outsmart him (and usually killing a few more people along the way). This one is a mystery. Lucas and his team are clearly at a loss in figuring out this case. There are numerous suspects, and we only get one brief snippet from the killer's point of view. So the book becomes a long police procedural as the force pulls uses all the tools they have and tries to keep the media at arms length. It drags a bit up until the last 5o pages. At the same time, Lucas is juggling his hormones and three potential women; Weather Kaarkinen, his most recent love; Catrin, an old flame from college who's married (barely); and ex-model Jael, who's potentially the next victim.

Written in 2000, when cell phones and the internet were still in their formative stages. Sandford remarks on this in the foreword of this newer edition, and it is amazing to realize just how far things have come in 20 years. Who remembers Alta Vista?

It's certainly not a bad book. It doesn't have the razor sharp focus of the others.