Mysteries & Thrillers - Books

Rough Country

Mysteries & Thrillers

The murder of a successful advertising executive leads Detective Virgil Flowers to the unlikely scene of the crime: a peaceful and bucolic wooded resort with as many suspects as it has secrets...While competing in a fishing tournament in a remote area of northern Minnesota, Virgil Flowers receives a call from Lucas Davenport to investigate a brutal murder at a nearby resort for women only. As Virgil begins investigating, he finds a web of connections between the people at the resort, the victim, and some local women, notably a talented and popular country singer. The more Virgil digs, the more he discovers the arrows of suspicion point in many directions, encompassing a multitude of motivations: jealousy, blackmail, greed, anger, and fear.Then Virgil discovers something that sends his investigation reeling. This is not the first murder connected to the Eagle Nest Lodge. Nor will it be the last...

The Proving Ground

Mysteries & Thrillers

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly, the Lincoln Lawyer is back with a case against an AI company whose product may have been responsible for the murder of a young girl. Following his “resurrection walk” and need for a new direction, Mickey Haller turns to public interest litigation, filing a civil lawsuit against an artificial intelligence company whose chatbot told a sixteen-year-old boy that it was okay for him to kill his ex-girlfriend for her disloyalty. Representing the victim’s family, Mickey’s case explores the mostly unregulated and exploding AI business and the lack of training guardrails. Along the way he joins up with a journalist named Jack McEvoy, who wants to be a fly on the wall during the trial in order to write a book about it. But Mickey puts him to work going through the mountain of printed discovery materials in the case. McEvoy’s digging ultimate delivers the key witness, a whistleblower who has been too afraid to speak up. The case is fraught with danger because billions are at stake. It is said that machines became smarter than humans on the day in 1997 that IBM’s Deep Blue defeated chess master Garry Kasparov with a gambit called “the knight’s sacrifice.” Haller will take a similar gambit in court to defeat the mega forces of the AI industry lined up against him and his clients.

Phantom Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

“Chalk up another winner for [John Sandford] and his all-too-human hero” (Richmond Times-Dispatch) in the #1 New York Times bestselling Prey series. After one troubled college-age student disappears and two are found slashed to death, Lucas Davenport finds himself hunting what appears to be a modern-day Jack the Ripper. Unfortunately the clues aren’t adding up—and then there’s the young Goth girl who keeps appearing and disappearing. Where does she come from? Where does she go every night? And why does Lucas keep getting the sneaking suspicion that there is something else going on here? Something very bad, very dark, and as elusive as a phantom…

Winter Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

It's the dead of winter, and a killer like no other is turning a small Wisconsin town into a death trap-one that's closing in on Lucas Davenport.

Broken Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

Don't miss this “sexy, bloody thriller"(Publishers Weekly) in #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford's Prey series...The first body is of a young woman, found on a Minneapolis riverbank, her throat cut, her body scourged and put on display. Whoever did this, Lucas Davenport knows, is pushed by brain chemistry. There is something wrong with him. This isn’t a bad love affair.The second body is found three weeks later, in a farmhouse six miles south. Same condition, same display—except this time it is a man. Nothing to link the two victims, nothing to indicate that the killings end here.“This guy…” Lucas said. He took a deep breath, let it out as a sigh. “This guy is going to bust our chops.” And soon he is going to do far, far worse than that…

Rules of Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

#1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford's “haunting, unforgettable, ice-blooded thriller”* that introduced Lucas Davenport... The killer was mad but brilliant. He left notes with every woman he killed. Rules of murder: Never have a motive. Never follow a discernible pattern. Never carry a weapon after it has been used...So many rules to his sick, violent games of death. But Lucas Davenport, the cop who’s out to get him, isn’t playing by the rules.“Terrifying...Sandford has crafted the kind of trimmed-to-the-bone thriller that is hard to put down…scary...intriguing...unpredictable.”—Chicago Tribune “Rules of Prey is so chilling that you’re almost afraid to turn the pages. So mesmerizing you cannot stop...A crackle of surprises.”—*Carl Hiaasen“Sleek and nasty...A big scary, suspenseful read, and I loved every minute of it.”—Stephen King“A cop and a killer you will remember for a long, long time.”—Robert B. Parker

Mortal Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

Years ago, Lucas Davenport almost died at the hands of Clara Rinker, a pleasant, soft-spoken, low-key Southerner, and the best hitwoman in the business. Now retired and living in Mexico, she nearly dies herself when a sniper kills her boyfriend, the son of a local druglord, and while the boy's father vows vengeance, Rinker knows something he doesn't: The boy wasn't the target-she was-and now she is going to have to disappear to find the killer herself. The FBI and DEA draft Davenport to help track her down, and with his fiancie deep in wedding preparations, he's really just as happy to go-but he has no idea what he's getting into. For Rinker is as unpredictable as ever, and between her, her old bosses in the St. Louis mob, the Mexican druglord, and the combined, sometimes warring, forces of U.S. law enforcement, this is one case that will get more dangerous as it goes along. And when the crossfire comes, anyone standing in the middle won't stand a chance....Filled with the rich characterization and exceptional drama that are his hallmarks, Mortal Prey proves that John Sandford just keeps getting better.

Silken Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

Murder. Scandal. Politics. And one billionaire heiress so dangerous in so many ways. An explosive Lucas Davenport thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford. 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 can’t believe it—the senator’s way too smart for that, even if he is from the other party. Something’s not right. As Davenport investigates, the trail leads to a political fixer who has disappeared, then—troublingly—to 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 work—along with the money, ruthlessness, and cold-blooded will to make it happen.

Wicked Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

For twenty years, John Sandford's novels have been beloved for their "ingenious plots, vivid characters, crisp dialogue and endless surprises" (The Washington Post), and nowhere are those more in evidence than in the sudden twists and shocks of Wicked Prey.Out of Lucas Davenport's past comes a psycho nursing a violent grudge. But why go after Davenport for revenge when Davenport's young daughter is so close-and so vulnerable?

Righteous Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers are up against a powerful vigilante group with an eye on vengeance in the latest in the beloved series by the #1 New York Times bestselling author.“We’re going to murder people who need to be murdered.” So begins a press release from a mysterious group known only as “The Five,” shortly after a vicious predator is murdered in San Francisco. The Five is made up of vigilante killers who are very bored…and very rich. They target the worst of society—rapists, murderers, and thieves—and then use their unlimited resources to offset the damage done by those who they’ve killed, donating untraceable Bitcoin to charities and victims via the dark net. The Five soon become popular figures in the media …though their motives may not be entirely pure.After The Five strike again in the Twin Cities, Virgil Flowers and Lucas Davenport are sent in to investigate. And they soon have their hands full--the killings are smart and carefully choreographed, and with no apparent direct connection to the victims, the killers are virtually untraceable. But if anyone can destroy this group, it will be the dynamic team of Davenport and Flowers.

Shock Wave

Mysteries & Thrillers

A billion-dollar superstore has its sights set on a small Minnesota river town for its next outlet. Two very angry groups want to stop it: local merchants, fearing for their businesses, and environmentalists, predicting ecological disaster. The protests are ignored, until a bomb goes off at the megastore’s Michigan headquarters—the first of a series of explosions. The blasts are meant to inflict maximum damage and utmost fear. They do. Virgil Flowers has been enlisted to find out who’s behind the dangerous acts, but the answer he uncovers may be the biggest shock of all.

Naked Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

The #1 New York Times bestselling Lucas Davenport novel from John Sandford.Two people are found hanging naked from a tree in the woods of northern Minnesota. What makes the situation particularly sensitive is the bodies are of a black man and a white woman. Lynching is the word everyone’s trying not to say, but as Lucas Davenport begins to discover, the murders are not at all what they appear to be. And there is worse to come—much, much worse.“All but impossible to put down.”—The Washington Post“Fast paced and full of surprises, this may be Sandford’s best novel yet.”—Library Journal

Night Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

A savage psychopath is playing cat and mouse with Lucas Davenport. But both killer and detective find themselves at odds with a female investigator who has intensely personal reasons for catching the killer herself-and fast.

Silent Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

Make noise for a new Prey package and new author introduction! Dr. Mike Bekker, a psychotic pathologist, is back on the streets, doing what he does best—murdering one helpless victim after another. Lucas Davenport knows he should have killed Bekker when he had the chance. Now he has a second opportunity—and the time to hesitate is through.

Easy Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

Lucas Davenport investigates an unsettling series of murders in this classic novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series—and this one is John Sandford “at the top of his game” (New York Post)… In life she was a high-profile model. In death she is the focus of a media firestorm that’s demanding action from Lucas Davenport. One of his own men is a suspect in her murder. But when a series of bizarre, seemingly unrelated slayings rock the city, Davenport suspects a connection that runs deeper than anyone had imagined—one that leads to an ingenious killer more ruthless than anyone had feared... FEATURING A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR

Mind Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

Lucas Davenport has met his match-a brilliant, wanton killer who knows more about mind games than Lucas himself. This man is more depraved and intelligent than anybody Lucas has tracked before-and with a female psychiatrist in his trap, he's already one step ahead of Lucas...

Bloody Genius

Mysteries & Thrillers

Virgil Flowers will have to watch his back--and his mouth--as he investigates a college culture war turned deadly in another one of Sandford's "madly entertaining Virgil Flowers mysteries" (New York Times Book Review).At the local state university, two feuding departments have faced off on the battleground of science and medicine. Each carries their views to extremes that may seem absurd, but highly educated people of sound mind and good intentions can reasonably disagree, right? Then a renowned and confrontational scholar winds up dead, and Virgil Flowers is brought in to investigate . . . and as he probes the recent ideological unrest, he soon comes to realize he's dealing with people who, on this one particular issue, are functionally crazy. Among this group of wildly impassioned, diametrically opposed zealots lurks a killer, and it will be up to Virgil to sort the murderer from the mere maniacs.

Sudden Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

“The stakes are high, the characters rich, the action relentless” (Publishers Weekly) in this Lucas Davenport novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford.The crime spree should have ended when Lucas Davenport killed the female bank robber during the shoot-out. But it’s just beginning, because the woman’s husband isn’t about to let Lucas—or anyone he loves—escape retribution.INCLUDES A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR

Shadow Prey

Mysteries & Thrillers

A series of ritualistic murders committed across the United States draws Lucas Davenport into an unimaginable conspiracy of revenge in this “classic”(Boston Globe) thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. A slumlord butchered in Minneapolis...A rising political star executed in Manhattan...A judge slashed to death in Oklahoma City... Each victim has a history of bad behavior, but the only thing the killings have in common is the murder weapon—a Native American ceremonial knife—and a trail of blood that leads to an embodiment of evil known only as Shadow Love. Recruited to be the lethal hand of a terrorist campaign, Shadow Love has his own bloody agenda, one he will do anything to achieve. Enlisted to find him are Minneapolis police lieutenant Lucas Davenport and New York City police officer Lily Rothenburg. But despite the countrywide carnage they needn’t look far. Because Shadow Love is right behind them.

Heat Lightning

Mysteries & Thrillers

Virgil Flowers hunts a killer responsible for a strange string of murders in this thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford.On a hot, humid summer night in Minnesota, Virgil Flowers gets a call from Lucas Davenport. A body has been found near a veterans’ memorial in Stillwater with two shots to the head and a lemon in his mouth—exactly like the body they found two weeks ago.Working the murders, Flowers becomes convinced that someone is keeping a list—with many more names on it. And when he discovers what connects them all, he’s almost sorry. Because if it’s true, then this whole thing leads down a lot more trails than he thought it did—and every one of them is booby-trapped.

Mysteries & Thrillers Books