Dark of the Moon (Virgil Flowers Series #1) by John Sandford

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Somebody is killing old people in Bluestem, Minnesota. When star Minnesota cop Virgil Flowers arrives in town to investigate the murder of an elderly couple, the local police chief invites him to help search for the slayer of another aged person, Bill Judd. Aware that octogenarians aren't the usual targets of serial killers, Lucas Davenport's ace assistant begins probing for this strange geriatric backlash. It doesn't take him long to realize that the friendly little town conceals some big, ugly secrets.

From the Publisher

Virgil Flowers-tall, lean, late thirties, three times divorced, hair way too long for a cop's-had kicked around for a while before joining the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. First, it was the army and the military police, then the police in St. Paul, and finally Lucas Davenport had brought him into the BCA, promising him, "We'll only give you the hard stuff."

He'd been doing the hard stuff for three years now-but never anything like this. In the small town of Bluestem, where everybody knows everybody, a house way up on a ridge explodes into flames, its owner, a man named Judd, trapped inside. There is a lot of reason to hate him, Flowers discovers. Years ago, Judd had perpetrated a scam that'd driven a lot of local farmers out of business, even to suicide. There are also rumors swirling around: of some very dicey activities with other men's wives; of involvement with some nutcase religious guy; of an out-of-wedlock daughter. In fact, Flowers concludes, you'd probably have to dig around to find a person who didn't despise him.

And that wasn't even the reason Flowers had come to Bluestem. Three weeks before, there'd been another murder-two, in fact-a doctor and his wife, the doctor found propped up in his backyard, both eyes shot out. There hadn't been a murder in Bluestem in years-and now, suddenly, three? Flowers knows two things: This wasn't a coincidence, and this had to be personal.

But just how personal is something even he doesn't realize, and may not find out until too late. Because the next victim . . .may be himself.

Filled with the audacious plotting, rich characters, and brilliant suspense that have always madehis books "compulsively readable" (Los Angeles Times), Dark of the Moon is vintage Sandford, further proof that he "is in a class of his own" (The Orlando Sentinel).

Publishers Weekly

What a pleasure to find a novel with an upbeat hero paired with a reader who is more interested in telling a story well than in demonstrating the outer limits of his vocal range. Far from the usual cynical, borderline-depressed investigator, Virgil Flowers is a likable, hang-loose sort of sleuth who enjoys life and seems to relish handling the "hard stuff" for his boss, Lucas Davenport (Sandford's Preyseries hero makes a brief cameo). Flowers's assignment is to investigate several gruesome murders in a small town. Unlike the harder-edged Preyseries, Moonis more of an entertainment, allowing Flowers to supplement his determined quest for justice with witty conversation and several romantic interludes. Conger matches the lighter moods with a mellow, almost mesmerizing matter-of-fact delivery, adjusting his vocal range just slightly to differentiate speakers. But when the action demands it-such as the grim opening murder scene or the suspenseful storming of the cult leader's encampment-Conger's voice takes on a properly hardboiled intensity. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Reviews, July 23). (Oct.)

Kirkus Reviews

Virgil Flowers, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator introduced as a sidekick to Lucas Davenport in Invisible Prey (2007), gets a death-enriched case of his own. In a little town like Bluestem, everybody knows everybody's business, and what everybody knows these days is that everybody's getting killed. The flagship victim is Bill Judd, 82, the wealthy lawyer/banker/trader who made enemies right and left with a Jerusalem artichoke pyramid scheme 20 years ago. He's an obvious target for the methodical arsonist who burned down his house with him inside. But the other victims are much more inoffensive: ancient physician Russell Gleason and his wife, retired Stark County sheriff Roman Schmidt and his wife. The current sheriff, Jimmy Stryker, doesn't mind working with a BCA type like Virgil. He doesn't even mind the sidelong gazes Virgil casts at his recently divorced sister, Joan Carson. And he brings up his share of promising ideas about the case, which involves money laundering, a meth lab, a surprise claimant to the Judd estate and a truly nasty man of the cloth. But could he be the target of his own manhunt? The advanced age of the victims makes Virgil think that the crimes could have deep roots-maybe as deep as a "man on the moon" party Bill Judd hosted back in 1969. Sadly, it seems to take another 38 years for Virgil and company, making endless rounds of Bluestem to ask really obvious questions, to close the case. The pace is so much slower than when Davenport is in charge that you may wonder if Virgil, a perfectly reasonable hero, is under sedation. It's not until the Acknowledgments, which are deferred till the end of the story, that this last and deepest mysteryis cleared up. A high-fatality, low-octane procedural that has its points but lacks the wow factor. Bring back Lucas Davenport. First printing of 500,000

Product Details

• ISBN: 0399154779
  
• ISBN-13: 9780399154775
• Format: Hardcover, 384pp
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
• Pub. Date: October 2007
• Sales Rank: 60,659
• Series: Virgil Flowers Series, #1