John Sandford, Dead Watch

Dead Watch

John Sandford

Putnam, May 2006, $26.95, 384 pp.

ISBN: 0399153543

When last seen several days ago, former senator from Virginia Lincoln Bowe was getting into a car smiling, but has been missing ever since. His wife Madison thinks foul play is involved. She believes the Watchmen, a group of veterans that Governor Goodman organized to keep watch over the streets, abducted Lincoln. She knows that her spouse lost his Senate seat due to the manipulations of the president and the governor.

As days pass, the Secretary of State asks independent contractor Jake Winter to find the former senator. Jake has the uncanny ability to cut through the miasma of bull that permeates the political bureaucracy to fill his client's requirements. He accomplices the mission, but Bowe is dead and a package of information he had that could bring down the administration is missing. Now the job is to find the package before the president's enemies obtain it. Two groups compete with Jake for possession, but which one would kill to gain the information does not matter to the sleuth, as he treats everyone client as an adversary.

Readers of the Prey novels will agree that John Sandford displays his depth of talent as he effortlessly switches from police procedural to a political thriller that is definitely heading to the bestseller lists. The protagonist is a unique character who has a talent that enables him to achieve his goal when it seems impossible to do so. Fast-paced action, a little romance and a great support cast turn DEAD WATCH into a spectacular reading experience.