It’s true enough that John Sandford’s Prey series of mystery/thrillers is getting a little long in the tooth. Anyone who compares the early books with the later ones (like Storm Prey) will immediately notice that the hero, Minnesota state policeman Lucas Davenport, is now a very different man from the younger millionaire-cop who was so good at hunting down psycho killers because he was a borderline psycho himself. Today Lucas is a happy husband and father, generally purged of his personal devils.

But author John Sandford (actually John Camp) knows there are more ways to engage the reader than train-wreck psychological voyeurism. In Storm Prey, Lucas’ wife, surgeon Weather Karkinnen, is involved in the high-risk separation of a pair of Siamese twins when she happens to see a particular Emergency Room doctor in a part of the hospital where he doesn’t properly belong. She thinks nothing of it at the time, but when the drug theft that doctor has plotted goes sour and a hospital worker is murdered, the doctor and his accomplices hire a sociopathic skinhead called Cappy to murder her. Fortunately he fails in the first attempt. But Weather refuses to go into protective custody until the surgery (delayed due to heart problems in one of the twins) is completed. So Davenport and his team set up around the clock protection for her while trying to identify and locate the criminals. By engaging our sympathy for the twins and their family along with our concern for Weather’s safety, Sandford expertly keeps the dramatic tension at a high level. A typically nasty stretch of Minnesota winter weather doesn’t make things any easier either.

Another virtue of Storm Prey (which I honestly consider the best Prey book in years) is Sandford’s treatment of his villains, who are extremely human. Most of them are somewhat sympathetic simply because (and I believe this is realistic) they aren’t particularly bright, as one of them admits at the end. In a way (not entirely) they’re as much victims of the “smart” criminals (who, as fellow sociopaths, bond like brothers) as the doomed innocents who get in their way.

Another thing I liked about the book is that Sandford takes the relatively courageous action of daring to show how ridiculous are our current rules of “political correctness,” and how irritating and needlessly troublesome they can be for working cops.

So I give high marks to Storm Prey, and recommend it. The usual cautions for language and sexual situations do apply.