With Naked Prey, John Sandford proved again that his writing is as fresh and compulsively readable as ever. "This is vintage Sandford, which is to say all but impossible to put down," said The Washington Post. "Sprawling, suspenseful, tough-minded [and] sheer fun."

Six months ago, Lucas Davenport tackled his first case as a statewide troubleshooter, and he thought that one was plenty strange enough. But that was before the Russian got killed. On the shore of Lake Superior, a man named Vladimir Orslov is found shot dead, three holes in his head and heart, and though nobody knows why, everybody-the local cops, the FBI, and the Russians themselves-has a theory. And when it turns out he had very high government connections, that's when it hits the fan.

A Russian cop flies in from Moscow, Davenport flies in from Minneapolis, law enforcement and press types swarm the crime scene-and, in the middle of it all, there is another murder. Is there a relationship between the two? What is the Russian cop hiding from Davenport? Is she-yes, it's a woman-a cop at all? Why was the man shot with . . . fifty-year-old bullets? Before he can find the answers, Davenport will have to follow a trail back to another place, another time, and battle the shadows he discovers there-shadows that turn out to be both very real and very deadly.

Hidden Prey was a good book: it came on time and in the condition promised. Thanks.

The premise of this book was just plain silly. It might have worked for a book set in 1988, when Lucas was still a young homicide cop, but didn't go over well in the mid-2000s. Soviet spies had their day. The Cold War is long over. That said, I think Sandford did a great job with Carl. Being a teenager is tough, but it's even harder when a man like his grandpa is pulling his strings.

This wasn't a bad read, or poorly written, it was just goofy. That goofiness left it feeling like it didn't really belong in the Prey series.

One would think that after so many Prey books, that they would decline as so many series do. (Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series comes to mind) Even though Lucas is no longer the playboy, and is now a married man with children, the series still remains fresh. This one differs somewhat in that we know who the killer is. It is a matter of Lucas figuring it out.

Lucas Davenport is back in the "Prey" series.

Instead of a book focused on Davenport, they elelemnt of the Prey series is quite ploy centered. Meaning in my mind you don't have to be that familiar with the previous character development in the series. "Hidden Prey" very much can stand alone without the rest of the series.

The plot starts with a Russian found dead in a Minnesota port. Three holes in his head and heart. Due to the connections of the victim, this becomes at least a low level international incident, and a Russian cop (or is it an intelligence agent?) come in from Moscow to conduct her own investigation.

The other oddity is that the murder weapon appears to be a fifty year old gun and evidence is pointing to a very deep sleeper cell of Communists and their 90 year old leader.

I found the plot of the book fascinating and it kept me enthralled to the end.

When a Russian worker on a grain ship is killed near Duluth, at first it seems random. However, soon it comes out that the man is not who he appears to be - he is the son of one of the New Russian wealthy class, an oil tycoon, and his father wants to know why he was killed, and why he was presenting himself under an assumed name (not to mention carrying several other sets of identification with him). Accordingly a Russian will be coming over to assist and oversee the investigation. The governor sends in Lucas Davenport to to find out what is going on.

Lucas, working with Nadya (the Russian agent) and local police officer Jerry Reasons (and Lucas' own undercover assistant Micky Andreno, who is called up from St. Louis), soon realizes that there is a lot more to this whole situation than meets the eye, but it seems that the more they pry into things, the more people are being threatened, and the more people are being killed. Can he discover the answer in time?

I really enjoyed this entry in the series - to see this country from the eyes of Nadya ("everywhere there are signs - why do you have so many signs?" and "everything is work work work money money money - in every other country people enjoy sitting, drinking, dancing") alone was worth reading the book. Sandford did a wonderful job portraying her and I wonder how he did the research to create this character, because she feels VERY real. Although we know more than the investigators do, we don't know everything and the intrigue and tension stays high throughout the course of the book, keeping the reader glued to the pages throughout.

Definitely a must-read recommendation from me!