Sigh. Wow. Sandford holds nothing back in this 13th book in the Lucas Davenport series. He brings back Clara Rinker and we are on for a wild ride. I really had no issues with anything except the ending, I wanted a different one, which probably says more about me than anything else.
In "Mortal Prey" we have Lucas and Weather planning their wedding and expecting their first child together. Lucas is going crazy with plans for their new house coming together and also with him planning on leaving the Minnesota PD to go and work for Rose Marie when she moves over to a new department as well. When the FBI calls up Lucas to ask for his help with Rinker, he decides why not, he still feels like he owes Rinker after she tried to kill him. And Lucas also admires Rinker especially after he is provided background on her life.
Sandford makes this a book about Rinker too. We get even more details about her and what she's been doing since she went on the run. And you actually will wish her well on her quest to take out the mafia after they kill her lover and cause her to miscarry. And you feel a bit sad, because Rinker had dreams of what her life was going to be, and now it's all up in smoke.
We have some old favs from the FBI returning, Mallard and Malone, and those two keep making some mistakes with Lucas coming along to fix. And we have new characters that Lucas meets in St. Louis.
The writing is very good. I cracked up a few times. And I have to say that I loved the women in this book. They definitely end up outsmarting a lot of men. Part of me wishes that Sandford had written a separate series for Rinker. The flow was very good too. I kept being happy when Rinker was getting away with everything.
The ending definitely shows you a big loss to Lucas that I don't even think he was expecting.