“He sort of looked mean, but in a hygienic, Minnesota way.”
Just recently I reviewed John Sandford’s more recent Virgil Flowers novel, Storm Front, and noted that that book’s light tone, and the fact that nobody got killed in it, typified the less serious quality of the Flowers books, as compared to Sandford’s hugely successful Prey novels.
The whole thing is pretty unpleasant. Sandford accomplishes the difficult task of making these stone killers somewhat sympathetic, but I’m not sure whether I’m grateful for that. There’s some humor, but it’s mostly the graveyard variety. The writing’s good, the characters well drawn and complex. But all in all it was pretty depressing.
Recommended on technical grounds, but I can’t say the book was much fun. Cautions for violence, sex, and language.
Addendum, 10:12 p.m.: I just remembered what irritated me most in this book. At one point Virgil, addressing a group of people, uses the pronoun “Y’all.” This is absurd. Virgil is a native Minnesotan, speaking to other Minnesotans. We do not say “y’all” in these parts. I’m certain Sandford knows this. I can only assume the word was inserted by a New York copy editor.