13 Oct 2011

Shock Wave (A Virgil Flowers Novel) /Book Review

By John Sandford
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult (October 4, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399157697
ISBN-13: 978-0399157691
Mystery & Thrillers >Suspense

Book Description
The thrilling new Virgil Flowers novel from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author.
The superstore chain PyeMart has its sights set on a Minnesota river town, but two very angry groups want to stop it: local merchants, fearing for their businesses, and environmentalists, predicting ecological disaster. The protests don't seem to be slowing the project, though, until someone decides to take matters into his own hands.
The first bomb goes off on the top floor of PyeMart's headquarters. The second one explodes at the construction site itself. The blasts are meant to inflict maximum damage-and they do. Who's behind the bombs, and how far will they go? It's Virgil Flowers's job to find out . . . before more people get killed.
About the Author
John Sandford is the author of twenty-one Prey novels, most recently Buried Prey; the Virgil Flowers novels, most recently Bad Blood; and six other books. He lives in Minnesota.
Review
Outstanding entry in Sandford's Virgil Flowers series
By  Gerald M. Bull (Fairview, TN United States)
We are big fans of Sandford, having read every single one of his Kidd, Lucas Davenport, and Virgil Flowers novels. These latter stories are similar to, but usually less violent than, the "Prey" novels, as Virgil is inclined to let the "regular" cops do most of the dirty work while he contemplates things quietly and often draws clever conclusions from just talking to people.
"Shock Wave" is aptly named, as it involves a plot about a very busy bomber who has it in for "Pye-Mart", obviously a Walmart knockoff, that is in the early construction phase in Butternut Falls (MN), and expected to destroy the local merchants and pollute the river with runoff, etc., etc. While that's not exactly an original premise, the one or two bombings per day keep everyone hopping to an insane degree, with a similar increase in suspense to the reader. Not surprisingly, there appears to have been illegal payoffs to local politicos to make the approval for the new megastore a reality; and while he's trying to discover the identity of the bomber, Virgil uncovers those crimes as well, nicely cleaning up the local scene. Meanwhile, Virgil seems to be telephonically breaking up with his new sheriff sweetheart, which slows down his tendency to womanize key characters, but that only added to the "off-screen" fun.
We don't award many books all five stars, but this one seems quite deserving -- a terrific protagonist in an exciting and suspenseful plot combine for a thrill-charged entertaining novel -- highly recommended!

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