In 1985, someone kidnapped and murdered two young girls. A redevelopment project employee discovers their bodies under an old house as he hauls away the concrete foundation. Lucas Davenport, a young cop in the Minneapolis Police Department when the girls were kidnapped, had been following some promising leads, but office politics, the thrill of promotion, and new crimes kept him from following up on his hunch.

Today, Lucas works for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Married with children, well established in his career and respected among his peers, Lucas cannot help but feel he let the two girls down all those years ago. He is determined to solve the crime by investigating the person he felt did the crime. He enlists the help of fellow officers who were on the force at the time and a few officers he has had a close relationship with, and sets into motion a string of events that lead to more death until the ultimate showdown with the killer.

His wife and fellow officers see Lucas's focus on the investigation as an obsession. They fear that he will kill the suspect when he gets his hands on him. Lucas is like a hound dog on a hot trail and the killer is sweating as time starts to run out for his life of crime.

BURIED PREY is a fascinating story. John Sandford has developed intricate characters that interact well with each other so the story moves at clip speed. Lucas methodically investigates a twenty-five year old crime by reconnecting with the people he interviewed at the time of the kidnapping. Because of the well-developed character that John Sandford developed, Lucas's actions are not only plausible but also exciting to read as the tightly woven plot moves to a most satisfying culmination. I thoroughly enjoyed BURIED PREY and hope that you will enjoy it as well.

Book Summary

A house demolition provides an unpleasant surprise for Minneapolis — the bodies of two girls, wrapped in plastic. It looks like they’ve been there a long time. Lucas Davenport knows exactly how long.

In 1985, Davenport was a young cop with a reputation for recklessness, and the girls’ disappearance was a big deal. His bosses ultimately declared the case closed, but he never agreed with that. Now that he has a chance to investigate it all over again, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: It wasn’t just the bodies that were buried. It was the truth.