Mortal Prey

Clara Rinker is the deadliest female hit woman to ever grace the pages of mystery fiction. We first met her in Certain Prey, where she barely managed to escape capture at the hands of Lucas Davenport. Since she left Minneapolis she's been living in anonymity in Mexico, where she has a lover named Paulo, who happens to be the son of a powerful drug lord. Neither have any clue as to her true identity, so when someone shoots and kills Paulo, they assume the attack was aimed at him. Clara knows better. It was aimed at her. Now she's back in the U.S., desperate to get revenge against the people who killed her lover and her unborn child. She figures the hit against her was taken by her old boss and his cronies, and she has plans, some elaborate, some simple, to give each and everyone of them what she thinks they deserve. Soon the FBI are back on her trail, and they've brought in Lucas Davenport to help track her ! down. At first he's interested, but not sure he can go down to Saint Louis to help...he's busily overseeing the rebuilding of his house, and his fiancee, the indomitable Winter, is in the middle of preparations for their wedding. When Winter finds out that the FBI want him to go, she's thrilled, because it'll get him out of her and the contractor's hair for awhile.

Lucas Davenport is probably one of the best done serial characters of this genre. He ages, he changes, and he has a personality that is both strong and good to be around. His competence is very believable. He's not some otherworldly superman, but he manages to come up with clever and efficient ways of getting things done. Clara Rinker makes an interesting nemesis. She's soft spoken, intensely loyal, and very smart. She knows how to keep herself clean. I couldn't help liking her despite the fact that she is, truly, a cold blooded killer. The fact that Sandford choose to return her to the series in this way, by having her go after the very people who use to employ her is a clever twist...as the reader, and Davenport, attempt to solve the twofold mystery of why someone tried to kill her and when Clara will strike next.

I thought this book was very inventive. The ways that Clara keeps her trail clean, the somewhat frightening things she uses to achieve her goals was fascinating. I was worried that after the last book, that perhaps this series was coming to the end, but with this book Sandford bounces back, writing a story that will demand your attention until the last page.

5 out of 5 trench coats
--Cindy Lynn Speer, GWN Book Reviewer