Heat Lightning (Virgil Flowers, No. 2) by John Sandford | LibraryThing:
I really like the Virgil ("Fucking Flowers") Flowers series. I've read several of the Lucas Davenport books by Sandford and find the Flowers books to have more humor and interest. They are also perfect for listening to while putting up snow fence. I have about 800 feet of snow fence to put up along my lane. For those who don't know what that involves, it means driving fence posts into the ground with a post driver weighing about 20 lbs, unloading rolls of wooden snow fence and then attaching the fence to the posts. It's always done when the weather is shitty (cold and windy and the field often muddy) and for someone my age probably inviting a heart attack. Takes me usually about 4-5 hours so I find a good book to listen to and take my time (I used to get done in about 3 hours.) The Flowers series, read by Eric Conger is perfect. Occasionally, I'll pause and laugh out loud.
The plots are rather routine. In this one a series of murders is being committed. All the dead had been in Vietnam at the same time, although not in the military. The bodies each have a lemon duct-taped in the mouths; several had been slowly tortured. Fine, the investigation is interesting and makes sense, but it's the character of Flowers (who knows his Aeneid) and his relationship to the other cops that I really like. It's obviously not a spoiler to say Virgil gets his man/woman.
The ending is a lot of fun. Sandford certainly has no love for Homeland Security (why does that name always seem to force my arm into an unnatural stiff arm salute? ) The subtext issues of this book must have John Stuart Mill rotating in his grave.
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