The extraordinary new Lucas Davenport thriller from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner. “If you haven’t read Sandford yet, you have been missing one of the great summer-read novelists of all time.”—Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly   Murder, scandal, political espionage, and an extremely dangerous woman. Lucas Davenport’s going to be lucky to get out of this one alive.   A Minnesota political fixer has hit the jackpot—or so he thinks. Hired to take down the incumbent U.S. senator with a vicious smear, to open the way for an ambitious, take-no-prisoners heiress who sees the Senate as merely a stepping-stone, he decides his payoff should be larger. The blackmail demand should yield some pretty large numbers, he thinks. Instead, he gets only a small one—9 millimeters, to be exact. In the heart. Davenport is investigating the smear when the trail leads to the man’s disappearance, then—very troublingly—to the Minneapolis police department, then—most troublingly of all—to a woman who could give Machiavelli lessons. She has very definite ideas about the way the world should work, and the money, ruthlessness, and sheer will to make it happen. No matter who gets in the way. Filled with John Sandford’s trademark razor-sharp plotting and some of the best characters in suspense fiction, Silken Prey is further evidence for why the Cleveland Plain Dealer called the Davenport novels “a perfect series,” and Suspense Magazine wrote, “If you haven’t read any of the Prey series, you need to jump on board right this second.”