Any John Sandford Fans Here?

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Click the link. You'll see a list of the books, in order. Click on individual titles for more info.


I've read all but the last two, one of which is due this May.

Also read all but the latest in his Virgil Flowers series. (I'll get it soon. It slipped past me until I checked his site today.)

These are superior crime thrillers, with continuing casts and taut plotting, with good dialogue and character development. His "Prey" protagonist is Lucas Davenport, a tough cop who made a fortune in designing computer games, but who continued his police career, first in Minneapolis, then as head agent of the MN Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

The gun data is correct and plausible. Sandford is a political liberal, but he hunts and he knows guns enough to use them well in novels.

If you like this genre and haven't tried his, "Prey" series or the Flowers books, you've missed some good reading! Virgil Flowers fishes and may hunt and does outdoor writing as well as being an agent for the state investigative bureau. (He works for the aforementioned Davenport.) I could do without his musical interests and his being a semi-hippie, but he solves cases. And if he reads, "Rolling Stone", he also reads, "Field & Stream." (Davenport is more formal; wears expensive suits, not rock group tee-shirts.)

Most libraries should have at least some titles.
 
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Oh yeah! I really like him. He is very good. I have all of his books except the new one in hardback. I like the prey series the best. Davenport is a no nonsense former college hockey player who is not afraid to get into it using a gun or his fists. I usually see Sandford's name on a book and I buy it. It is always a good read.
 
I've read 'em all and enjoy the series a lot. Only quibble I've had is having Lucas use a Colt Gold Cup as his personal defense sidearm. If you know Gold Cups then you know the front sight can disappear any time you're shooting!

Sandford, like most crime writers, is not really a gun guy. Stephen Hunter is the MAN!
 
S&WIowegan said:
I've read 'em all and enjoy the series a lot. Only quibble I've had is having Lucas use a Colt Gold Cup as his personal defense sidearm. If you know Gold Cups then you know the front sight can disappear any time you're shooting!

Sandford, like most crime writers, is not really a gun guy. Stephen Hunter is the MAN!
Click to expand...

You have a very good point! And I also agree that Stephen Hunter is the MAN as well! I have his books as well. You gotta love ol Bob Lee Swagger.:D
 
I'm reading Mortal Prey right now. I'm still catching up, but my dad has them all. I've read all the Flowers novels. I like Davenport much more. V F is a sissy compared to Davenport.
 
I've been a John Sanford fan from the beginning. His Prey books are some of the best and most entertaining books I've ever read. See, I like a story with a really, really bad killer in it. I like for the hero to really have to stick it out there to save the day and I don't mind if he gets his hair messed up a little bit in the process.

The Prey books fill that need nicely. In some of the books he is telling the story through the eyes of the killer and that is a very refreshing writing technique.

His characters are life like and the relationships are very realistic and human. And you don't EVER have to spend 3 pages reading the description of wallpaper.

All said and done I don't suppose there are any that I like any better although, James Patterson, Lee Child, and the late Robert B Parker ain't all that far behind.
 
I really enjoy Sanford's books. Lucas Davenport was cool before Raylan Givens and "Justified." You also never know what that "So & So" Flowers is up to! ;)I have all of his books and look forward to each new release.
 
I am a real John Sandford fan...I have read (and have in hard cover) all of his novels, including the Flowers series, and his other books: the Kidd series, "The Night Crew", and "Dead Watch." I also have them all on my Kindle.

They are by far the best detective/crime fiction that I have read. Even so, I've found a couple of things in his books that disappoint me...on a couple of occasions, he has made reference to taking the safety off of a revolver, or a Glock. Now, there may be a revolver out there that has a safety, but I've never heard of one...not that I know everything...and I know some people have added a safety to a Glock, but they don't come stock that way. That to me seems to be sloppy writing, unless he clarified these to be either an rare revolver or a customized Glock.

Even so, I still find his plots and characters to be more enjoyable than any other author in the genre. Lee Child is pretty good, but Jack Reacher does strain credulity at times. Another very good author is Lawrence Sanders, at least in his Deadly Sin series. I don't like the McNally series...I think they are rather silly.

Edited to add: there have been two movies made from Sandford's books, and they were both so bad as to be literally unwatchable. When Lee Child's "One Shot" was made into a movie starring Tom Cruise, I didn't think I could watch it...since Jack Reacher is 6'5" and his enormous size plays a prominent part in every book. My son insisted that I go to see it with him, and the movie (retitled to "Jack Reacher") was actually pretty good.
 
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I may be forgetful, but don't recall him mentioning any safeties on Glocks or revolvers. There are a few revolvers that have safeties, inc. some S&W .38's made for French police use. I think they were M-12's. Not all French police S&W's had safeties; most don't. Nor do Manurhin or Ruger revolvers in French use.

As for the Gold Cup front sight, yes, they can loosen. Mine did, and I traded the gun in on an M-29 S&W, 6.5-inch bbl., made about 1960. Superb gun! Smooth rosewood stocks, too, and in a wooden case. Despite the heavy recoil, it was remarkably accurate. I later sold it only because I had to pay a tax bill. I still bitterly regret that event.

Davenport has used several .45 autos, inc. (I think) an S&W. The author has the money to buy guns, and may try various ones. I'm sure he gets reader feedback, too.

I think early Gold Cups had a thinner slide, to enable them to work better with light target loads. Full loads battered the sights and maybe more. I heard they later used normal thickness slides, and that may have helped. Jeff Cooper warned about the front sights, so I just traded mine when the problem surfaced.

Some writers use whatever local cops have. One lady checked with police in Memphis (?) and found they have Glocks, so her heroine does. I know it's some city in TN; I'll try to find one of her books around here and correct this if I'm wrong on the city. I recall asking her about the Glock choice and got a nice reply.

Peter O'Donnell did very well with guns in his Modesty Blaise series, as did the late Donald Hamilton in his Matt Helm and other books. But few mystery writers know guns.
 
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I seem to like the books that Virgil Flowers has center stage in the best. He doesn't seem quite the "super hero". Anyone that pulls his fishing boat on some cases is okay with me.
 
Texas Star said:
I may be forgetful, but don't recall him mentioning any safeties on Glocks or revolvers.
Click to expand...

On John Sandford's Facebook page, he actually addresses this. I hadn't read it before, but it does give some insight to how errors can occur...and sometimes they are just simply mistakes. Here's a link to what he said concerning these errors...and BTW, the person who wrote him about the Glock wasn't me.

He also seems to have a good sense of humor. :)


[John Sandford... | Facebook
 
GKC said:
On John Sandford's Facebook page, he actually addresses this. I hadn't read it before, but it does give some insight to how errors can occur...and sometimes they are just simply mistakes. Here's a link to what he said concerning these errors...and BTW, the person who wrote him about the Glock wasn't me.

He also seems to have a good sense of humor. :)


[John Sandford... | Facebook
Click to expand...

Thanks! I read it and was amused. And he's right: I'm a writer and it's completely true that avoiding an error based on something that one wrote some chapters back is a constant hazard. I learned that with fan fiction, and keep it in mind while working on my novel.

That's one reason why I like for a careful friend to check my work, when possible. During the course of publishing nearly 4,000 magazine and newspaper aticles, I've had to proof my own work most of the time. An editor will catch some errors, but they don't like to have to do it. I've been very fortunate to have had editors change almost none of my work, and several have told me that one reason they liked to see my material was that they knew that they wouldn't have to spend time correcting errors. At one time, major publishing houses had editors who proofread and worked with an author to correct problems. I gather that this is largely in the past, and they want a mss. ready to go and be fully polished before even considering it.

My son once asked David Lindsey whether writing for a living was easy. The author thought for a moment and replied, "No, it's actually pretty hard."

But his books are so good that you have to admire his having stuck with it and succeeded in achieving some really superior prose. His villlains are truly loathsome, his settings so precise and well described that one reviewer called him, "the master of the small scene." But he is also a master of the large scene, as in the city of Houston.

A scene in his, "Spiral" was one of the most realistic gunfights that I've ever seen in fiction.
 
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Texas Star said:
I think early Gold Cups had a thinner slide, to enable them to work better with light target loads. Full loads battered the sights and maybe more. I heard they later used normal thickness slides, and that may have helped. Jeff Cooper warned about the front sights, so I just traded mine when the problem surfaced.
Click to expand...

It's not about the slide particularly, the standard Gold Cup front sight is staked on. The stake succumbs to wear and g-force and goes PING flying off into anywhere. However, I should add that the newest Gold Cup models appear to have a dovetailed front sight.
 
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They don't last very long at this house! Outstanding writer. He cannot write fast enough though. Highly recommended.

How about this game...if you like John Sandford...you will like??? (need suggestions)

I need some new writers!
 
billwill said:
They don't last very long at this house! Outstanding writer. He cannot write fast enough though. Highly recommended.

How about this game...if you like John Sandford...you will like??? (need suggestions)

I need some new writers!
Click to expand...

Have to read James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly or Vince Flynn? Larry McMurtry was good too with a wide range of stories.
 
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