JOHN SANDFORD, página 2 de 5

Murder, scandal, political espionage and an extremely dangerous woman. Lucas Davenport's going to be lucky to get out of this one alive.A Minnesota political fixer has hit the jackpot - or so he thinks. Hired to take down the incumbent U.S. senator with a vicious smear, to open the way for an ambitious, take-no-prisoners heiress who sees the Senate as merely a stepping-stone, he decides his payoff should be larger. The blackmail demand should yield some pretty large numbers, he thinks.Instead, he gets only a small one - 9 millimeters, to be exact. In the heart.Davenport is investigating the smear when the trail leads to the man's disappearance, then - very troublingly - to the Minneapolis police department, then - most troublingly of all - to a woman who could give Machiavelli lessons. She has very definite ideas about the way the world should work, and the money, ruthlessness and sheer will to make it happen.No matter who gets in the way.

Murder. Scandal. Politics. And one billionaire heiress so dangerous in so many ways.Its the explosive new Lucas Davenport thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author.All hell has broken loose in the capital. An influential state senator has been caught with something very, very nasty on his office computer. The governor cant believe itthe senators way too smart for that, even if he is from the other party. Somethings not right.As Davenport investigates, the trail leads to a political fixer who has disappeared, thentroublinglyto the Minneapolis police department itself, and most unsettling of all, to a woman who could give Machiavelli lessons in manipulation. She has very definite ideas about the way the world should workalong with the money, ruthlessness, and cold-blooded will to make it happen.

The night after the fourth of July, Layton Carlson Jr., of Red Wing, Minnesota, finally got lucky. And unlucky. He'd picked the perfect spot to lose his virginity to his girlfriend, an abandoned farmyard in the middle of cornfields: nice, private, and quiet. The only problem was...something smelled bad - like, really bad. He mentioned it to a county deputy he knew, and when the cop took a look, he found a body stuffed down a cistern. And then another, and another. By the time Lucas Davenport was called in, the police were up to fifteen bodies and counting. And as if that wasn't bad enough, when Lucas began to investigate, he made some disturbing discoveries of his own. The victims had been killed over a great many years, one every summer, regular as clockwork. How could this have happened without anybody noticing? Because one thing was for sure: the killer had to live close by. He was probably even someone they saw every day...

In Israel, a man clutching a backpack searches desperately for a boat. In Minnesota, Virgil Flowers gets a message from Lucas Davenport: You're about to get a visitor. It's an Israeli cop, and she's tailing a man who's smuggled out an extraordinary relic-a copper scroll revealing startling details about the man known as King Solomon. Wait a minute, laughs Virgil. Is this one of those Da Vinci Code deals? The secret scroll, the blockbuster revelation, the teams of murderous bad guys? Should I be boning up on my Bible verses? He looks at the cop. She's not laughing. As it turns out, there are very bad men chasing the relic, and they don't care who's in the way or what they have to do to get it. Maybe Virgil should start praying.

Bestseller Sandford opts for a contemplative procedural rather than a high-octane nail-biter for his 17th novel to feature Minneapolis detective Lucas Davenport (after 2005's Broken Prey). The brave and intelligent Davenport, one of contemporary crime fiction's more congenial sleuths, is working a politically sensitive case?state senator Burt Kline is on the edge of being arrested for having sex with a minor?when he's called in to investigate the beating death of wealthy widow Constance Bucher and her maid. Bucher lived in a mansion stuffed with antiques, though it's unclear if robbery was the motive for the murders. Several run-of-the-mill suspects are dealt with before the reader learns the identity of the two killers, who continue to murder a string of folks all variously connected to the Bucher slaying. Eventually, the Bucher and Kline cases come together in an unexpected way. Interesting and unusual supporting characters, good and bad guys alike, enhance an intriguing puzzle.

Virgil Flowers, tall, lean, late thirties, three times divorced, hair way too long for a cop's, kicked around for a while before joining the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. First it was the Army and the military police, then the police in St. Paul, and finally Lucas Davenport brought him into the BCA, promising him, "We'll only give you the hard stuff." He's been doing the hard stuff for three years now - but never anything like this. In the small town of Bluestem, where everybody knows everybody, a house way up on a ridge explodes into flames, its owner, a man named Judd, trapped inside. There is a lot of reason to hate him, Flowers discovers. Years ago, Judd perpetrated a scam that drove a lot of local farmers out of business, even to suicide. There are also rumors swirling around: of some very dicey activities with other men's wives; of involvement with some nutcase religious guy; of an out-of-wedlock daughter. In fact, Flowers concludes, you'd probably have to dig around to find a person who doesn't despise Judd. And that isn't even the reason Flowers came to Bluestem. Three weeks before, there'd been another murder - two, in fact - a doctor and his wife, the doctor found propped up in his backyard, both eyes shot out. There hadn't been a murder in Bluestem in years, and now suddenly three? Flowers knows two things: This wasn't a coincidence, and this had to be personal. But just how personal is something even he doesn't realize, and may not find out until too late. Because the next victim ... may be himself.

Virgil Flowers-tall, lean, late thirties, three times divorced, hair way too long for a cop's-had kicked around for a while before joining the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. First, it was the army and the military police, then the police in St. Paul, and finally Lucas Davenport had brought him into the BCA, promising him, "We'll only give you the hard stuff."

In the richest neighbourhood of Minneapolis, two elderly women lie murdered in their home, beaten to death with a metal pipe, the rooms ransacked, only small items stolen. It's clearly a random break-in by someone looking for money to buy drugs. But as he looks more closely, Davenport begins to wonder if the items are actually so small or the victims so random, if there might not be some invisible agenda at work here. Gradually, a pattern begins to emerge - and it will lead Davenport to somewhere he never expected. Which is too bad, because the killers - and there is more than one of them - the killers are expecting him.

Lucas Davenport sabe por qué mata la gente. Algunos lo hacen por la emoción del momento. Otros para conseguir algo. Pero cuando el equipo de Davenport abate a dos atracadoras en pleno golpe, el policía cae presa de la motivación más pura y sencilla de todas: la venganza. Y así empieza todo. El marido de una agente es asesinado. A la mujer de otro le tienden una emboscada en el trabajo. Cuando consiguen frustrar un tercer ataque, el patrón queda claro para Davenport. Éste, con una urgencia nacida de la rabia y el terror, lucha por dar caza a los asesinos, siguiéndoles los pasos con desesperación para intentar detenerlos antes de que puedan golpear de nuevo, antes de que den también con los seres más queridos de Davenport. Pero a pesar de todos sus esfuerzos, es posible que llegue tarde. «Una novela de suspense que te pondrá los pelos de punta. La apuesta es fuerte, los personajes sustanciosos y la acción incesante... la historia atrapará como una trampa para osos a cualquiera que abra este libro».—Publishers Weekly «Seguramente lo leerá de un tirón» —Chicago Tribune

A widow comes home to her house in a wealthy suburb to find blood everywhere, no body-and her college-aged Goth daughter missing. But the police can't find the girl, alive or dead, and when a second Goth is found slashed to death, the widow truly panics. She calls on Lucas Davenport to solve the case. This is the latest Prey novel by 1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford.

Very early, 4:45, on a bitterly cold Minnesota morning, three big men burst through the door of a hospital pharmacy, duct-tape the hands, feet, mouth, and eyes of two pharmacy workers, and clean the place out. But then things swiftly go bad, one of the workers dies, and the robbers hustle out to their truck-and find themselves for just one second face-to-face with a blond woman in the garage: Weather Karkinnen, surgeon, wife of an investigator named Lucas Davenport. Did she see enough? Can she identify them? Gnawing it over later, it seems to them there is only one thing they can do: Find out who she is, and eliminate the only possible witness...

A daring drugs raid on a Minneapolis hospital, during which a medical orderly is kicked to death, takes place on the same day that Lucas Davenport's surgeon wife, Weather, is due to perform a high-profile operation to separate conjoined twin girls. Investigating the raid, Davenport concludes that it must have been an inside job and - as a witness to the criminals' desperate getaway - Weather is now in grave danger.

In southeast Minnesota, a school board meeting is coming to an end. The chairman announces that the rest of the meeting will be closed to only a few for personal issues. The remaining members vote on the fate of a local reporter. And it s unanimous "Kill him." Meanwhile, Virgil Flowers is investigating a dognapping crime wave in a Mississippi River town when he gets a call from Lucas Davenport. A corpse has been found, and the victim is local reporter Clancy Conley. Virgil has no idea where this is all headed. All he knows for sure is that things are getting nasty in Buchanan County."

NOVELA DE FICCION THRILLER

The extraordinary new Lucas Davenport thriller from #1 New York Timesbestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner John Sandford. After the events in Gathering Prey, Lucas Davenport finds himself in a very unusual situationno longer employed by the Minnesota BCA. His friend the governor is just cranking up a presidential campaign, though, and he invites Lucas to come along as part of his campaign staff. Should be fun! he says, and it kind of isuntil they find they have a shadow: an armed man intent on killing the governor . . . and anyone who gets in the way.