Rating: 
Summary: Read for a 9th grade project
Review: John Sandford's tough, smart cop, Lucas Davenport, is up against Clara Rinker, the best hit-woman in the business. It's a rematch.
Sandford deserves monuments: his writing is smooth, his characters rich, his plots greased with flawless efficiency.
You can pick any of Sandford's fifteen or so "Prey" thrillers and be swept into a world of good people and bad; of justice and injustice.
Lucas Davenport feels real. He hurts. He makes mistakes. He gets tired, cold and hungry. He is definitely not invulvernable. But he is smart and dogged.
He's a fictional treat because he feels so real. And John Sandford is to be profusely thanked for not only his creation but for his growth from one "Prey" novel to the next.
Jerry
Rating:
Summary: The best in a long line of Prey
Review: At the end of "Certain Prey" three years ago, Clara Rinker took a shot at Lucas Davenport, missed and called him on the phone to chat about it. You knew then there'd be a sequel, and it's as good as the first - even better."Mortal Prey" begins in Cancun when sniper Izzy Cohen fires at Clara killing her lover Paulo Mejia and their unborn child, wounding her. Determined to settle the score, Clara takes off before Paulo's powerful family finds out she was the real target and the St. Louis mob realizes she's still alive. Her hit list includes four "businessmen" led by Nanny Dichter, pioneer of the St. Louis cocaine business, and John Ross who got Clara started as a contract killer and is still one nasty guy. The first hit comes quickly with a lot of little arrows that will point to Clara when the cops, the Feds and Ross start following them, but she'll always be a step or two ahead. The FBI is holding her younger brother Gene on a trumped up drug charge, so Clara calls Lucas to lay down the ground rules. The lively if unrealistic banter between maverick lawman and outlaw sets the tone for the chase to come. Ten pages later Sandford repeats the conversation as Davenport heard it, capturing the gut level connection between them while their two minds work at warp speed toward opposite ends. There's a steady flow of great action with Lucas and his unofficial partner ex-cop Mickey Andreno working the streets and Agents Mallard, Malone and the rest of the FBI providing high tech back up and firepower. Through page 350 the story follows a somewhat structured outline, moving from one showdown to the next. Then Sandford gives us three quick closing chapters. He provides a sufficient degree of closure to this saga but leaves enough loose ends and surviving old and new characters that I would bet on, hope for, future St. Louis based / Rinker related Prey stories. One thought for Sandford's next effort: Certain Easy Rules of the Mind in the Eyes of a Secret Chosen Mortal turn Silent in the Sudden Shadow of the Winter Night. Translated: The Prey series has been great, but don't let the 90s Lucas wear us down. Keep the stories coming, but trade in the Porsche.
Rating: 
Summary: The 'man-hunt' for Clara Rinker
Review: Clara Rinker was the female assassin Lucas Davenport met in an earlier book, Certain Prey. She managed to escape both him and the FBI, and have been hiding in Mexico. Something terrible happens down there, and Clara is forced to go back to the States to seek revenge. While Clara gets aquainted with old friends and foes, Davenport and the FBI figures out, that because of the incidents in Mexico, they should begin looking for Clara in the States again. Soon dead bodies start to turn up, and there is no doubt in Davenport's mind that it is Clara's work. But neither he nor the FBI can find her. Lucas is helping out the feds, but it is not before he starts investigating on his own, with the help from a couple of retired cops, that he starts to find the rigth track. Question is, will Clara succeed in escaping this time as well?
Rating: 
Summary: Clara should have survived.
Review: Clara was one of the deepest characters Sandford ever created with more to her than most of the rather simple characters including Lucas. I might be the only one but all the way through the book I rooted for her to succeed and escape. Given her history of carefully planned executions - some in this book are classic examples - why she fell for the all too simple trap Lucas set is a mystery aside from the need to end the book.
No, she killed off a number of people in this book who needed to be removed. She was a professional and she looked at Lucas that way - not the type to take the risk to kill him high profile. She would have waited years if need be to get just the right situation. She had removed the threat to her from the mob. she would have laid low. Far better to have brought her back a few books from now unexpectedly - perhaps to kill lucas at the end of the series. This was the only disappointing part. 4 of 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: CLARA RINKER IS BACK AGAIN!!!
Review: I absolutly loved "Certain Prey" the 10th novel in the Prey Series. "Mortal Prey" is the 13th novel in the Prey Series and it is as good, if not better than "Certain Prey."
A woman who is a hired hit-man, or should I say hit-person to be politically correct...Clara Rinker is one of those characters that you read about and can't forget because of her lack of respect for life. This time around in "Mortal Prey" Clara looses one person she would have loved and protected, her unborn baby. Her boyfriend is taken down by a hit man and Clara goes down with him but survives, yet looses her unborn baby. Needless to say we find out early in the novel who the hit-man was really after....
Without giving the whole story away Clara gets really mad and goes on a killing spree. Enters, Lucas Davenport detective.
This is another brilliant novel in the Prey series! John Sanford has done it again.HIGHLY RECOMMEND!! Just a note. You really should read the series from the very beginning to give this book justice. It would be hard to understand what is going on, especially in Lucas Davenports (the main character) life and other main characters in the book. This is the best detective series I have ever read! You won't be disappointed!
Rating:
Summary: Sandford does it again!
Review: I was thrilled to see a new book in Sandford's Prey series! I couldn't wait to read it and I wasn't disappointed. This was such an enjoyable ride. I enjoyed the return of Rinker...and while I agree with other reviewers that Clara Rinker was the star of this book...with Davenport playing a "supporting role"...it was a nice change. I enjoyed peeking into the mind of the bad guy or is that bad girl? I liked the balance of Rinker's ambushes against Lucas's detective work. I didn't see the ending coming...and not too many books catch me off guard in the end. I also enjoyed the addition of new characters that it appears will be reappearing in the next books and look forward to seeing what developes as Davenport moves into his new job. All in all a great book!
Rating:
Summary: Hell Hath No Fury
Review: In Mortal Prey, thirteenth installment of the "Prey" series, John Sanford "reunites" Lucas Davenport with Clara Rinker, the highly successful hit woman who almost cashed in Lucas's chips once before.
Rinker became involved with Lucas when she accepted a job in Minneapolis, and Lucas managed to track her down and almost catch her. She tried to kill him, he almost killed her, and she retired after almost being killed by her employers who didn't want her retired and loose knowing all she knew about them. Between books, she escaped to Mexico and quite by accident became involved with the son of a drug ring godfather. She figured out who the family was, but they didn't know about her.
The new story begins when a sniper kills Rinker's boyfriend and almost kills her as well, and does cause her to lose the baby she is carrying. Everyone assumes the hit is connected to her boy friend's family. Not Rinker. She knows it is her old employers trying to tie up a loose end, and she is also concerned that the family will find out and blame her. So she takes off as soon as she gets well, and heads to St. Louise for revenge. When the facts about Rinker come to light, the FBI gets involved and brings in Lucas, who has come closer than anyone else to apprehending her.
Even though the FBI has figured out who her probable targets are and is trying to protect them, Rinker stays one step ahead. The task force stays as close at they do only because Lucas brings street cop smarts into the game to go with the computer-driven FBI analyses. The suspense builds, the blood flows, and the bad guys fall away one by one.
In the end, after a surprising plot twist, there is justice of a kind. Does Rinker get away from Lucas again? Read Sandford's Mortal Prey and find out.
Rating:
Summary: Rinker (hitwoman) redux
Review: John Sandford's Prey series has a strong following now, and this isn't the book (despite the blurb inside the cover) to start the series with. But if you're already into the series, this is a very good novel with a number of plot twists and interesting characters. The action starts in Mexico, where Clara Rinker (the escaped killer in Certain Prey) is almost killed by an assassin, who escapes only to be killed by an accomplice. You're never certain why she was shot at, or who prompted it, but she seems fairly certain that it was prompted by old acquaintances from her days in St. Louis, MO, and so she returns to try and track them down. When it becomes apparent what's going on, the FBI calls on Lucas Davenport to help find her. The plot goes from there, and I won't tell you anything more. Suffice to say, the action is pretty evenly paced, throughout, and enough happens to keep you interested for the length of the novel. This is a very good book, worth the time you're going to spend on it, unless you've not read the previous one that involves the lady killer. If that's the case, you should read that one first.
Rating:
Summary: Pull up a Comfortable Davenport
Review: Looking through the 'scope, this novel features exotic locales for Lucas Davenport, well outside his usual Twin Cities ambit, and a new treat for the reader. Perhaps these varied settings presage a wider field of action as Davenport moves to a new, state job in the next novel. Viewed from the other end, I didn't find the excessive personal tensions and psycho-logical horror that he often encounters in his earlier cases. Although numerous changes are impending in his life, they play little role here. This is a stroll for Lucas, who leads all the work, and contributes all the leads, at a comfortable yet rapid pace. A nice vacation from fear for the reader, too, since the killer's hits are on people you won't particularly like. Incidentally, this could be a good book for retirees, who would be proud of the retired St. Lou gum-shoes who do good work (ALL the work, one might say, since the FBI seems only good for looking up 'phone numbers :). Davenport's quarry is once again the memorably endearing professional of CERTAIN PREY, Clara Rinker, coming back into Lucas' conflicted life. Clara is ingenious and constantly surprising, ruthlessly efficient and creative. She is as confident as ever and bent on multiple revenges, less enigmatic in aims than Sandford's usual psychos but as devious in means as ever. Stalking her ends up much deeper than you initially suspect. I found very little was extraneous to the plot, despite a high page count. Numerous characters come and go, some stereotyped for the plot, but each each well and contrastively characterized. There are two developments in Davenport's slowly progressing family life. Lucas shows he is one in a long line of sentimental detectives in literature, but very close to the top.
Rating: 
Summary: Mortal Prey -- DOA
Review: Man, it sucks when you have a best seller that uses the same paragraphs, almost word for word in two different chapters. It took me 20 minutes to figure out I was on the right page. I had to go back to page 163 to a phone call between Rinker and Lucas to figure out that it was not a tape recording or a flash of Deje Vu on my part, when they have the same conversation on page 174. This also screws up the hole story line, because Rinker already used the information in the first call to inform the press. And now it seems like the two never made contact at all. Lucas even gives her his cell number twice. I almost chucked the book in the can. Unfortunantly I usually share my books with others, but this one will go out with the monday trash. I was hoping for a good read, not a test of my reading comprehension.
Don't frustrate yourself with this book.
Consider it DOA.
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