Deadline (A Virgil Flowers Novel) - John Sandford
Virgil Flowers got the call, just as one might expect, in the wee hours of the morning. Never mind that to reach his phone he had to crawl over the warm, willing female flesh lying in bed next to him, there was something more important afoot: a dognapper had snatched a pair of Labrador retrievers. Hey, I can relate – that’s damned important! Bright and early the next morning, Virgil found himself addressing a group of angry dog owners in the little Mississippi River town of Trippton. The locals were pretty sure who’d been snatching local dogs, but they needed help getting them back. Virgil reluctantly agreed to help – guess he’s not a dog person…
While investigating the missing pooches, Virgil and his local contact Johnson Johnson (brother of Mercury Johnson, though not of Evinrude Johnson) stumble over a meth-cooking operation. Great: now Virgil has an excuse to be in town! But wait, even while he waits for the DEA to raid the meth lab, a couple of kids stumble over the body of a local newspaper reporter. Something doesn’t add up, though – Virgil’s getting two entirely different stories about what was going on in Clancy Conley’s life, and that discrepancy is tickling his spidey sense.
If something is rotten in Buchanan County that Fuckin’ Flowers just stepped in it – and with all the dogs in town snatched in the middle of the night, that’s definitely not what he stepped in…
Seven books into the Virgil Flowers series (Dark of the Moon, Mad River, Storm Front), John Sandford’s iconoclastic BCA agent finds himself – as ever – on the backroads of Minnesota. For all its bucolic reputation, though, there sure seems to be a seamy underbelly to The Land of 10,000 Lakes. As always, it’s greed – the love of money being the root of all evil – that drives the action. Want a little hint? The local school board is as crooked as a sidewinder.
| Sandford’s woodsy renaissance hero – besides being a great lover, Virgil hunts and fishes and even occasionally freelances for outdoor magazines – stands in contrast to the usual run of citified cops and private eyes. Virgil’s world isn’t inhabited by baggy-pantsed gangbanger and drug kingpins in Armor-Alled Cadillac Escalades, it’s a world of camo-clad, snaggletoothed types who are more than likely packin’ heat – but just to kill varmints getting’ at the chickens, ya know? Yet one can’t help but get the impression sometimes that Sandford is poking just a little fun at his rustic characters, as in this passage about his dognapping villain: |  
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D. Wayne was wearing camo, head to foot, which was no change: he always wore camo, head to foot. So did his children.
His ex-wife, Truly, whom he still occasionally visited, wore various pieces of camo, depending on daily fashion demands – more at Walmart, less at Target. She also had eight pairs of camo underpants, sizes 4XL and 5XL, which she wore on a rotating basis: two each of Mossy Oak, Realtree, Legend, and God’s Country, which promted D. Wayne to tell her one night as he peeled them off, “This really is God’s country, know what I’m sayin’, honeybunch?”
| Mad for "Duck Dynasty" or not, Virgil’s rural suspects are every bit as avaricious, even sociopathic, as anyone in the big city – and that’s the case in Deadline as well – the body count mounts with every page. Let me admit right here that I’ve never read any of Sandford’s xxxx Prey novels, but when it comes to Virgil Flowers old John’s a hoot – a hoot and a half, even. Not only is Virgil a kick, with that slightly long hair (cowboy long, not rock-star long) and his wardrobe of indie-band tee shirts, everyone he meets is a kick. Even the villains are hilarious in a Carl Hiaasen-like way: the only three women on the rogue school board are all named Jennifer, for instance. |
Having connected with Frankie “Ma” Nobles in Storm Front, the twice-married Virgil has settled down (a little, anyway) for Deadline. Will readers like this new, somewhat domesticated version of Virgil? Maybe all he needs is a dog – and there are plenty to choose from in this installment of the Virgil Flowers series.
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