Chosen Prey by John Sandford
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Formed his loop; touched her neck again. Held the loop open, smiled, dropped it around her neck, and...
Snap!"

Chosen Prey (2001) is the twelfth installment in the acclaimed "Prey series" by John Sandford (John Camp in real life). A little while ago (for me this means about a quarter of a century), I had read many novels in the series and found them relatively well-written, interesting, only moderately packed with the usual genre clichés, and compulsively readable. Perfect examples of high-end disposable literature. (Supercilious, am I not? By the way, "supercilious" is a snobbish way of saying "snobbish.") So I was curious about my reaction now, when wisdom and experience (euphemisms for "senility") abound.

Not much has changed. A captivating, fast read, a rather believable police procedural, with a smattering of criminal psychology, yet one that does not leave much of a trace in memory, at least mine. I finished reading about 10 days ago, and I have to look in my notes to remember the general outline of the plot.

The story opens a bit untypically when

James Quatar [...] an art history professor and a writer, a womanizer and genial pervert and pipe smoker, a thief and a laughing man and a killer"

abandons the plan to strangle his lover. The almost laughingly perfect Lucas Davenport leads an investigation that combines several threads: in one of them, a body of a woman strangled over a year ago has been found; in another, drawings begin to appear in which faces of actual women are superimposed on porn scenes. The meticulous investigation is presented in detail and fans of police procedurals will be satisfied. The author provides some neat plot twists before the denouement.

The brutally graphic scene of strangling approaches but, in my view, does not yet cross the boundary into straight porn of violence. The scenes of excavations are well-written and grimly vivid. I quite like the slim office politics thread: Davenport's boss, Rose Marie Roux, is worried about her future as her boss, the mayor, is not running for re-election. On the other hand, the obligatory personal-life thread of the relationship between Davenport and his girlfriend, Weather, is purely and painfully cliché. It does not make Davenport seem more human. Exactly the opposite. It makes him seem like a character from disposable literature.

To sum up: a great read, yet eventually empty, devoid of any depth.

Three-and-a-quarter stars.


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