Deadline

I have to say this, “Deadline”, the most recent Virgil Flowers novel, by John Sandford, was a bit of a disappointment.

It seemed to hold so much promise: dog napping, murder, and a school board running amok.

Unfortunately the promise fizzled out before the book reached the half way mark.  It went from being full of promise to being full of the ridiculous.

The character of Virgil seemed slightly ‘off’ from the other books.  No spiritual speculations for a start.  The character is given, in earlier books, to interesting thoughts of a spiritual nature, but in this one he appeared to be operating on auto pilot with no thoughts at all in his head.

“Deadline” was saved from being a total write-off by the wonderful Jenkins and Shrake.  The BCA’s bully boys were at their pretending-to-be-ignorant, shit-kicker, best.

So called “bad” language doesn’t worry me, I use a few choice words myself when the situation warrants it.  John Sandford does drop the occasional “fuck” in his novels.  However, this time around it seemed to be the Word of the Week for the characters.  Frankly, I got extremely tired of it.

To be honest, I think “Deadline” is only worth reading if you’re a dyed in the wool Virgil Flowers fan.  Steer clear if you’ve never read any John Sandford books before.  There are much better ones to start off your reading.