Rating: 
Summary: Frozen Solid
Review: ...In, "Winter Prey", John Sanders 5th thriller in the Prey series, we are set in frozen Wisconsin. And there is a killer on the prowl. Lucas Davenport is at his nearby vacation home and is asked to help.With 60 people out of the little towns 4,000 residents being on the police or government payroll, someone knows something! A twisting plot, glimpses into very sick minds, themes of pedophilia, homosexuality, and Lucas himself, gives us a solid chiller thriller. Thanks for your interest & comments--CDS
Rating:
Summary: Conjures Up A B-rated Movie
Review: A friend suggested reading Sandford and so I did with this particular story. It develops suspense and I did want to know who the terrible villain was, but as it turned out the perp seemed almost incidental to all that happened. I was reminded of B-rated movies and how their characters always fall short of the mark. In this case, the investigating detective did not, but the killer had no such luck.
Rating: 
Summary: PLEASE!!
Review: A sad mess. Stilted dialogue. Awkward sentence structure. Predictable piece of junk. Not a nuance from beginning to end. Not a suggestion of humor. No insights into motivation,or character development. How can this be published when there are great books out there by Ruth Rendel, PD James, and even Robert Parker who can make you laugh and think? I am amazed that other reviews on this page say that this is Sandford's best. Maybe it is; but I will never know.
Rating: 
Summary: Grusome, yet riveting
Review: Action packed from the word go -- and graphic to leave nothing to the imagination. An excellent murder/mystery that will keep you guessing to the end...
Rating: 
Summary: Bitter Cold Murders
Review: He calls himself the Iceman, and he runs a child porn ring in a tiny community in northern Wisconsin. In the depths of a bitter winter, he realizes that someone has a photo that can identify him and concludes it's the young daughter of a local family. In a grisly scene, he kills the father and mother, then tortures the daughter horribly before he decides that she doesn't have the photo. To make sure, he kills her and burns the house. The sheriff has never faced a crime of this magnitude, but Lucas Davenport, famed for his crime-solving with the Minneapolis police, is vacationing in a nearby cabin and joins the search for the killer. The hunt become more pressing as the Iceman continues to kill in search of the photo. The pace becomes steadily more frantic and ends in a terrific chase. The author throws you several red herrings, but you should figure out the Iceman's identity about halfway through the book. This doesn't detract from the suspense. I had trouble putting the book down. The characters are great, and icy, bitter cold is a main factor in the snowbound countryside. It's a great thriler - well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, with a questionable plot point.
Review: I enjoyed the book. The Iceman was a scary character, and I enjoyed the other characters in the book, with a good plot. It turned out to be a whodunit. An earlier reviewer made some comments about the author not distinguishing homosexulality and pedophilia in the book. I didn't get that. There were some characters accused of homosexuality, and there were some characters involved in pedophilia. I don't think he blurred the lines at all. He didn't specifically define homosexuality and pedophilia in the book, but I assume he figured he didn't need to with an adult audience. My beef with the book was his treatment of the man in the wheelchair and the teacher at the vocational school. Davenport and a Milwaulkee cop enter the home of the wheelchair man, and he admits to producing the child porn magazine, and sending it to a printing teacher at the vocational school. He then shows them a closet stacked full of each issue he's produced. Where I'm from (a few hours drive from wisconsin), that is a serious felonly, with serious penalties, and the cops would jack the jail up and throw these guys underneath it in real life. Sanford portrays the cops as semi-tolerant of this activity, similiar to the way a cop may question a prostitute, and threaten to take her in, but really doesn't want to because it's not that major a crime. That doesn't seem true to life at all. In most or all areas of the US, mere posession of child porn is very serious, and manufacture and distribution is treated even more harshly. These guys would have been charged with several felony counts right away.
Rating: 
Summary: Davenport Does "Winter in Peyton Place"
Review: I found this book EXTREMELY TEDIOUS.The characters are FLAT, including his love interest, and uninteresting compared to the other Davenport books I have read. No wonder the murders/kiddie porn are such fodder for discussion in this podunk town, the citizens have nothing to do and nothing to keep themselves entertained. They need to get a life. Wish Davenport would just go back to Minneapolis and get on with it. Surely the twin cities could keep him busy? I am disappointed and SO GLAD that I checked this turkey out from the local library.
Rating:
Summary: Author Disappoints!
Review: I have read several of the Prey books, and have generally enjoyed them. This particluar book disappoints me not because of its style but because of the author's failure to address responsibly the issues of homosexuality, pedophilia and child sexual abuse. I do not expect an author of fiction to write a dissertation on these subjects, but I do expect him to address them in a responsible and factual manner. Sandford fail to distinguish the difference between homosexuality and pedophilia. The adults in this book are engaged in sexual activity with children. Regardless of the genders of those involved, we are dealing with pedophiles, not homosexuals. I think it is irresponsible of the author to fail to make this distinction clear. His failure to do so fuels the fire of hatred and fear of homosexuals and the myth of the male homosexual as a danger to male children. People who have sex with children, be they homosexual or heterosexual, are pedophiles! Also, I am disturbed by Sandford's portrayal of the children as willing participants in this world of sexual abuse! I would have appreciated some description, on the jacket of the book, as to the content. Not everyone is comfortable reading a story in which the central theme is child sexual abuse. Some warning would have been nice. I would encourage the author to consider the impact of his plots on the communites about which he writes. In the future, I hope to see Mr. Sandford rely more on social reality and less on stereotypical and generalized depictions of these communities.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book
Review: I really liked Winter Prey, the killer, "The Iceman" was throughly chilling. It takes many twists and turns, you never know what will happen next. You can't figure out who the killer is, and why he is stalking this little town. The romance between Lucas and Weather is really great.
Rating:
Summary: Not the Best of Prey
Review: I'm a huge fan of the Prey series and perhaps after reading too much of any series, one may tire a bit of the formula. I don't know but I found this installment to be uninspired and a tad tedious. The subject of child porn should be a truly galvanizing and disturbing thing - simply because it is a hrrific thing - but the treatment by Sandford left me infifferent to the fate of just about everyone. Sandford's better than this.
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