Rating: 
Summary: Guess I'm out of the loop
Review: This is not my favorite Sanford book...that would be Winter Prey. While I was intrigued to see Clara Rinker back again to haunt Lucas, I guess I just felt that the mystery aspect of this one was a little weak. The ending seemed too predictable to me.
Now that Lucas has put Rinker behind him, and his house is built,
and his baby is born, he might go on to bigger and better mystery lines. Here's to the next Sanford novel. However, I did enjoy the ex-cops he met in this book. They rocked!
Rating: 
Summary: Clara's back
Review: This novel marks the return of hired assassin, Clara Rinker who made her debut in CERTAIN PREY. She has retired for the last few years and is living a happy life with her lover, Paulo. Somebody is still interested in Clara and sends a team to eliminate her but instead they kill her boyfriend and her unborn child. Clara knows of only five people who would want her dead and she is going to track each one and make sure they are dead. They took her last chance at happiness and she is not the forgiving type. Nobody is going to get on her way.Lucas Davenport is back and ready for action. He faced Clara once before and he is ready to do it again. After all these years he still remembers her. He knows and understands how this hitwoman was created and all he feels is sympathy for her. He wants to help her because he does not want anyone else to get hurt. Clara does not care at this point as she relentlessly tracks her prey. In the thirteenth novel of the series, Sandford appears to be taking the books to a new direction. Davenport's boss is leaving the police department and wants him to join her; Del and Sherrill have minimal roles in the book; Weather is pregnant and engage to Lucas; and Davenport is now investigating crimes outside of Minneapolis. The story's conclusion is disappointing. It almost appears that the author is trying to clean the slate with regards to his main character. Hopefully, this will be a change for the better but only time will tell.
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: Absolute best of kind....
Review: John Camp (who writes under the name John Sandford) was a prize-winning Twin Cities journalist who left the profession to make a fortune writing thrillers. He more than earns his money. This is number 13 in the "Prey" series featuring Minneapolis maverick-cop Lucas Davenport. Because of the Minnesota settings, I've been reading these books from the beginning. This is without doubt the best yet. Specifically, I'd say: (1) John Camp is an exceptional writer, with a great sense of pace and descriptive detail. (2) Lucas Davenport is one appealing, quirky, anti-establishment hero. (3) In Clara Rinker, Davenport has met his match, in more ways than one. (4) The resulting action is swift, ceaseless, bloody, compelling,inevitable. This is an absolute best of kind!
Rating:
Summary: What happened to Lucas??
Review: As a huge fan of the Prey series I was sorely disappointed in this latest effort. While most of Sandford's books have been 5 stars or better (with maybe one or two exceptions), this latest novel featuring Lucas Davenport is but a mere shadow of the former books. Clara Rinker is back and terrific -- in fact, she's a stronger character in this novel than Davenport is. As she begins her quest for vengeance on those who've harmed her, Lucas unfortunately takes a back seat, even as he's outsmarting the FBI and returning to the streets to find clues with good old-fashioned police work and networking. But even that small portion of the book cannot save it from its dreariness. Lucas Davenport discussing men's fashions? Davenport fussing over house plans? Wedding plans? Playing MATCHMAKER? Characters mature, they evolve, but I still want to know what happened to the Lucas Davenport that would back a criminal into a corner and squeeze the soft fleshy part of the bad guy's nose between his thumbnail and forefinger? The Davenport who would demolish a brothel with a baseball bat just to get their attention? The cold, calculating Davenport who would unhesitatingly frame a known serial killer and have no remorse whatsoever? Where is Davenport? What has John Sandford done with him? Out of respect for the series as a whole, I give this book three stars. It probably only deserves two. ...
Rating:
Summary: Not up to par
Review: I found this latest offering from Sanford to be not up to his usual excellent form. (Actually I thought the last two books in the series were weak, too), I think he's just getting tired of writing this character, and that's OK, many authors tire of their series characters . . . but he should quit, then. He has a much better (I think) series going with Kidd (Fool's Run, Empress File, Devil's Code) and as much as I like Davenport, it may be time to retire this series. Specifically, I question Clara Rinker's motivation for sticking around to kill all the bad guys on her list when the FBI, the cops, Davenport, and the world were waiting for her. I mean, c'mon! She's made to look like a crazed psychopathic killer and this is not in her personality (the personality that Sanford created for her -- a cold, methodical planner). She could easily have stepped back, gone to ground, and waited for a year or so. What's the rush??? As well, where does this devotion to her brother (who abused her, let's not forget) come from? Sanford presents us with this new-found tenderness (gimme a break) and tries to make it work as a reason for her killing the FBI agent, but it doesn't work. Where was Clara's devotion to the brother all these years? Nope, it just doesn't wash. Occasionally Sanford's writing rises to the crisp tautness of earlier books, but for the most part it just plods along. Ho hum. I'm waiting for the next book in the Kidd series.
Rating:
Summary: Praise for "Mortal Prey"
Review: John Sandford's latest book in the 'Prey' series introduces some witty new characters that spice up the series. It also presents a fresh maturity in hero Lucas Davenport. The biggest bonus is that it returns Clara Rinker -- the contract killer from "A Certain Prey." Rinker swarms north on a killing rampage after she's been the target of a botched hit south of the border that accidentally killed her new love and her unborn child. Rinker doesn't know who ordered her demise. It could be any one of four men -- who all have a reason to want her dead. After her own dreams are destroyed, she doesn't worry about which one of her four former associates ordered the hit. She decides they're all deserving targets. If a murderer can ever be compelling, Rinker is number one on that list. She's devious, she's dynamite, and she's deadly. Because of her brutalized childhood, the occasional reader and even Lucas Davenport find themselves wishing Rinker would cha-cha-cha back south after she's wiped out her enemies. But that's not to be. Buy the book and see what target is on her list and if she hits the bull's eye after she polishes off the four men who had the misfortune to think they could wipe out Rinker.
Rating:
Summary: Best of the Prey series
Review: John Sandford is one of my favorite authors and I buy his books without reading editorial or reader reviews. Sometimes I'm a little disappointed, but not with this latest, "Mortal Prey". I think it's the best of the Prey series. He gave Lucas much more depth of character than in his previous books, and Rinker's methodology of setting up her victims was very well done, and her dysfunctional personality was made more understandable. All in all, I thought this would be a one nighter, but it was too good to read too fast. It's a keeper.
Rating:
Summary: Praise for Prey
Review: John Sandford's "Mortal Prey" is an interesting and well-written addition to his 'Prey' series. Clara Rinker is back--against her will. She disappeared down south of the border and built a life. New job. New lover. New baby on the way. All this newness is shattered when an assasin's bullet slams through Clara and her new love, injuring her and killing him and the baby-to-be.
Rating:
Summary: Action-Packed
Review: I'm a first time reader of John Sandford. I must say I throughly enjoyed myself. It is a must read. Clara and Lucus were great antagonists it was great start to finish.
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