I should probably apologize for promoting John Sandford’s Prey novels, of which Field of Prey is the latest installment.

I mean, I always have to warn you about the language, which can be pretty coarse, and the psycho serial killers, who just get more and more creepy. In a way you could call these books horror novels (Psycho seems to be an inspiration for this one), and I don’t even like horror.

But… but I like the writing and the characters. Sandford deftly relieves the horror with episodes of mordant cop humor, and some dissing of political correctness.

And most importantly of all, he writes about Minnesota!

At one point in Field of Prey, Dr. Weather Davenport, wife of the hero, says, “TV. It’s like if you’re not on it, you don’t exist. The single most pernicious idea in our culture.”

I’m kind of like that with books. Those of you who live in Manhattan or LA or Chicago are used to seeing stories set in your home towns. But I’m a boy from Goodhue County, Minnesota, and Field of Prey is set precisely there, mostly. My home town isn’t mentioned (though I’m pretty sure Lucas Davenport drives through it at one point), but the story starts in Faribault, and then there’s Owatonna, and Red Wing, and Zumbrota, as well as a fictional town called Holbein.

My home area is in a bestselling book! We exist!

Also the book is pretty exciting, if you can put up with the rough elements.