Publication
Doubleday Large Print
Collection
Call number
Large Print Fiction S
Physical description
566 p.; 22 inches
Status
Available
Call number
Description
Bonnie and Clyde, they thought. And what's-his-name, the sidekick. Three teenagers with dead-end lives, and chips on their shoulders, and guns. The first person they killed was a highway patrolman. The second was a woman during a robbery. Then, hell, why not keep on going? As their crime spree cuts a swath through rural Minnesota, some of it captured on the killers' cell phones and sent to a local television station, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers joins the growing army of cops trying to run them down. But even he doesn't realize what's about to happen next.
Genres
User reviews
LibraryThing member keenchris
Another swell outing with that effing Flowers. Plot summary can be wrapped up short & sweet: 3 young killers on a crime spree in Minnesota with much more to the story than just that! Good interaction between the kids & Virgil that is interesting and reveals quite a bit about him as well as them.
Sandford is still solid and the story swept along with only a few missteps.
One weird phone call to his mom that had me scratching my head-does Virgil kiss his mom with that mouth? There was a closer look at Virgil's dad that sort of put Virgil into perspective. I enjoyed the fleshing out of their family back story a little bit.
The main plot was good-choppy vignettes of violent action interspersed with humor here & there. There are good cops, bad cops, hot chicks, beatings, sexual 'stuff', car chases, introspection and a nice plot device to look inside the killers' minds. Sandford writes like a slow moving train: you know where you're going with this engineer & conductor but the weird scenery along the way is always changing!
A couple of points that dropped my rating to 3:
--SPOILER ALERT---
I did kind of wonder what was up with the dropped plot point of the Vanity Fair article? Several months pass before the wrap up of the story so that's plenty of time to resolve it. Kind of strange the way it was set up, too. The Letty character is so strong and takes care of her own business but WEATHER is the one dragging her feet on the article? Or maybe it's Lucas-Sandford never gets into it and I thought that was odd.
The other thing was the whole Ag/husband/brothers/tornado. At the end I was shaking my head WTHeck? I felt like Sandford had a really good idea for a story but it didn't fit a Davenport story, wasn't enough for a standalone book and really didn't match Virgil but with a little tweaking it could maybe-kind of-sort of-a little bit, fit into this book?
---end spoiler alert---
Not a 4/5 star by any means but a decent 3 star way to pass a snowy day! Looking forward to the next one in the series.
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Sandford is still solid and the story swept along with only a few missteps.
One weird phone call to his mom that had me scratching my head-does Virgil kiss his mom with that mouth? There was a closer look at Virgil's dad that sort of put Virgil into perspective. I enjoyed the fleshing out of their family back story a little bit.
The main plot was good-choppy vignettes of violent action interspersed with humor here & there. There are good cops, bad cops, hot chicks, beatings, sexual 'stuff', car chases, introspection and a nice plot device to look inside the killers' minds. Sandford writes like a slow moving train: you know where you're going with this engineer & conductor but the weird scenery along the way is always changing!
A couple of points that dropped my rating to 3:
--SPOILER ALERT---
I did kind of wonder what was up with the dropped plot point of the Vanity Fair article? Several months pass before the wrap up of the story so that's plenty of time to resolve it. Kind of strange the way it was set up, too. The Letty character is so strong and takes care of her own business but WEATHER is the one dragging her feet on the article? Or maybe it's Lucas-Sandford never gets into it and I thought that was odd.
The other thing was the whole Ag/husband/brothers/tornado. At the end I was shaking my head WTHeck? I felt like Sandford had a really good idea for a story but it didn't fit a Davenport story, wasn't enough for a standalone book and really didn't match Virgil but with a little tweaking it could maybe-kind of-sort of-a little bit, fit into this book?
---end spoiler alert---
Not a 4/5 star by any means but a decent 3 star way to pass a snowy day! Looking forward to the next one in the series.
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LibraryThing member ZachMontana
Another excellent Vigil Flowers novel. I love the narrator, Eric Conger, and can't imagine not hearing Vigil Flowers novels on AudioBooks without him reading. He captures the character perfectly.
LibraryThing member SunnySD
Three losers on a killing spree leave a trail of death strewn about the tiny towns of Minnesota. Virgil Flowers is on the case, but catching them may be more about getting lucky... Oh yeah, that's what Flowers does best (well, one of the things, anyway).
Bloody, complicated and hard to put down. Par
Bloody, complicated and hard to put down. Par
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for the course with a Sandford book. Show Less
LibraryThing member dickmanikowski
Damn, Virgil Flowers is a compelling character. I must have read seven or eight of the novels in this John Sandford series, and Virgil keeps on grabbing me.
In addition to the action packed plot, MAD RIVER is filled with other fascinating characters and moral ambiguities. Near the end, I found
In addition to the action packed plot, MAD RIVER is filled with other fascinating characters and moral ambiguities. Near the end, I found
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myself almost rooting for the pair of low-lifes on a crime spree littered with innocent bodies. That's a pretty tough sell. Show Less
LibraryThing member ecw0647
Another enjoyable audio listen, this time read by Eric Conger. This book is part of the Virgil Flowers series by Sandford. Flowers is a BCA (Bureau of Criminal Apprehension - weird name for a state police agency if there ever was one) agent working under Lucas Davenport who makes several cameo
As the killing intensifies and the killers remain at large, the tension escalates into a conflict between Virgil and the local cops as to how best to deal with the miscreants. That provided one of the subtexts that I found interesting: the desire of the community for immediate vengeance, and Flowers's obsession with discovering whether Jimmy had been hired to kill Agatha.
I think I prefer the Flower series to the Davenport. Flowers just seems to be a more interesting and introspective than Lucas who often strikes me as superficial.
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appearances. This is not an investigatory police procedural. The story alternatives between Flowers and the killers' narratives. There's never any doubt who's guilty, the only mystery being their ultimate motivation for the first killing. Mostly it's the chase of three dysfunctional kids who go on a rampage following a simplistic contract killing. They are totally sociopathic and embark on an unintentional (soon becoming otherwise) killing spree.As the killing intensifies and the killers remain at large, the tension escalates into a conflict between Virgil and the local cops as to how best to deal with the miscreants. That provided one of the subtexts that I found interesting: the desire of the community for immediate vengeance, and Flowers's obsession with discovering whether Jimmy had been hired to kill Agatha.
I think I prefer the Flower series to the Davenport. Flowers just seems to be a more interesting and introspective than Lucas who often strikes me as superficial.
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LibraryThing member zmagic69
A fun quick read from John Sandford, a little more violent than usual, but a thriller that was fun to read and kept me wondering how it would end.
LibraryThing member jepeters333
Jimmy Sharp, Becky Welsh, and Tom McCall - they were Bonnie and Clyde, they thought, and what's-his-name, the sidekick. Three teenagers with dead-end lives, chips on their shoulders, and guns. The first person they killed was a girl during a robbery. The second was a man whose car they needed. The
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third and fourth, well, those were personal. Show Less
LibraryThing member darcy36
John Sandford never disappoints! Love anything he writes! I never start one of his books unless I have time to finish it that day--otherwise I will be up until 3 in the morning, unable to put it down.
LibraryThing member carolynsuarez
quirky ending. yet very satisfying.
LibraryThing member Judiex
Unemployed, broke, no future in their home town, teenager Jimmy Sharp told his girlfriend, Becky Welsh, and sidekick, Tom McCall, that they were breaking into the house to get diamonds. But Jimmy killed a women during the robbery, then, when they ran into car trouble as they made their getaway,
When a couple was killed in their home in a nearby town, Virgil Flowers of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Unit was called in to help find the killers.
The killings continued and it didn’t take long for Flowers to figure out who was responsible, but finding them in a rural area, determining the motive, and preventing additional deaths was much harder. The original motive became obvious, but it had to be proven. The local sheriff, however, was a staunch believer in shoot to kill.
MAD RIVER tells the story from both the perspectives of Flowers and of the trio. There is a little repetition. It doesn’t seem realistic that the trio of losers could avoid detection for as long as they did, that the Flowers was able to get more usable help from non-professionals, or that the sheriff followed his old script rather than understand why it wouldn’t work.
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killed a man to get his car.When a couple was killed in their home in a nearby town, Virgil Flowers of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Unit was called in to help find the killers.
The killings continued and it didn’t take long for Flowers to figure out who was responsible, but finding them in a rural area, determining the motive, and preventing additional deaths was much harder. The original motive became obvious, but it had to be proven. The local sheriff, however, was a staunch believer in shoot to kill.
MAD RIVER tells the story from both the perspectives of Flowers and of the trio. There is a little repetition. It doesn’t seem realistic that the trio of losers could avoid detection for as long as they did, that the Flowers was able to get more usable help from non-professionals, or that the sheriff followed his old script rather than understand why it wouldn’t work.
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LibraryThing member everfresh1
Quick action, made for movie kind of novel. Very well done. I liked Lucas Davenport, the main character of of previous John Sandford novels. Virgil Flowers is different and I haven't warmed up to him yet. We will see how it will go. I like that Lucas is still part of the narrative since there is
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some continuity here. Show Less
LibraryThing member gmmartz
I've been bummed at the downturn in the quality of recent output from two of my other favorite writers in this genre, Michael Connelly and Ridley Pearson, so I was pleasantly surprised that John Sandford's latest is just as fine as all his others. It's a great read, with a believable story line,
Lucas Davenport was one of the best long-term characters developed in this genre, and the transition to the younger-and-fairly-similar-but-different new star, Virgil Flowers, has been great to experience. I really appreciate the way Sandford has kept Davenport involved in a key role, but has let Flowers carry the ball. It's been a smooth transition that seems to have been carefully planned and successfully executed.
I've heard Mad City's plot compared to both Bonnie and Clyde and Natural Born Killers. Both are valid, I guess, but I'd compare it to more of a 'needle and a haystack' story. Bad stuff happens, the criminals hide in a rural part of the state, more bad stuff happens as they move from hiding place to hiding place, and Virgil and the local authorities always seem to be a step behind. In the meantime, the situation turns into a political nightmare, pressure mounts on law enforcers, the randomness of the initial event turns out to be not so random, and bad stuff continues. Sandford does a great job creating a manic atmosphere for both the criminals and the good guys, and as always Virgil works his magic in his spare time on the local female population.
John Sandford has created yet another winner for his faithful readers. Anyone unfamiliar with his work can literally pick out any of his books as a start, but the farther you go back into his catalog, the better.
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great dialogue, credible situations for the law enforcement characters... all the hallmarks of Mr. Sandford's previous successful novels.Lucas Davenport was one of the best long-term characters developed in this genre, and the transition to the younger-and-fairly-similar-but-different new star, Virgil Flowers, has been great to experience. I really appreciate the way Sandford has kept Davenport involved in a key role, but has let Flowers carry the ball. It's been a smooth transition that seems to have been carefully planned and successfully executed.
I've heard Mad City's plot compared to both Bonnie and Clyde and Natural Born Killers. Both are valid, I guess, but I'd compare it to more of a 'needle and a haystack' story. Bad stuff happens, the criminals hide in a rural part of the state, more bad stuff happens as they move from hiding place to hiding place, and Virgil and the local authorities always seem to be a step behind. In the meantime, the situation turns into a political nightmare, pressure mounts on law enforcers, the randomness of the initial event turns out to be not so random, and bad stuff continues. Sandford does a great job creating a manic atmosphere for both the criminals and the good guys, and as always Virgil works his magic in his spare time on the local female population.
John Sandford has created yet another winner for his faithful readers. Anyone unfamiliar with his work can literally pick out any of his books as a start, but the farther you go back into his catalog, the better.
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LibraryThing member debavp
I usually tear through a Virgil Flowers escapade in a day maybe two. This took me over 2 months. Granted I had a really shitty personal life at the time but this didn't do the trick for me like they have up to this point. Cant put my finger on it other than to say I didn't see my old Buddy that
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f*****g Flowers anywhere on these pages. Show Less
LibraryThing member DrLed
Synopsis: Three kids go on a killing spree. Virgil is on their trail but finds that there may have been a trigger for this rampage that has more to do with a husband's envy for his wife's money than simply with dead-enders looking for thrills.
Review: While this is a good read, it didn't have as
Review: While this is a good read, it didn't have as
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many lighter parts as other Virgil Flowers novels. Show Less
LibraryThing member Daftboy1
This is a Virgil Flowers investigation novel.
A young couple are driving round a rural community killing people at random.
They had an accomplice but he turned himself in.
The first lady they killed they were hired to do by her husband and Virgil wants to prove this.
More people are murdered.
Local
Virgil isn't happy he wants them alive.
The husband of the dead woman runs away, Virgil thinks he faked his own death or that his Wife's brothers killed him.
There is a terrible hurricane at the end of the novel.
Virgil still needs answers but he can move on.
OK book this
A young couple are driving round a rural community killing people at random.
They had an accomplice but he turned himself in.
The first lady they killed they were hired to do by her husband and Virgil wants to prove this.
More people are murdered.
Local
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police decide to kill the couple rather than bring them in. Virgil isn't happy he wants them alive.
The husband of the dead woman runs away, Virgil thinks he faked his own death or that his Wife's brothers killed him.
There is a terrible hurricane at the end of the novel.
Virgil still needs answers but he can move on.
OK book this
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LibraryThing member Carol420
Three down on their luck young people start on a spree that results in body upon body as they run in circles for their lives. Virgil Flowers is their only hope of staying alive, but the local law has other ideas. It was a good book. I always like John Sandford's books. This one began to drag a bit
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toward the end but overall it was well up to his standards. Show Less
LibraryThing member rmarcin
Best Virgil Flowers book yet!
LibraryThing member JBreedlove
Another good Virgil Flowers read. Chasing a Bonnie and Clyde pair across western Minnesota Virgil gets best up and laid like he always does. He is Sandford's cool hipster alter ego and he is a likable one Fishing, screwing or thinking about baseball or God in Minnesota while catching bad guys is
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his M.O. and Sandford writes it well. Show Less
LibraryThing member zmagic69
A fun quick read from John Sandford, a little more violent than usual, but a thriller that was fun to read and kept me wondering how it would end.
LibraryThing member kwskultety
Not as impressive as other Flowers stories, kind of slow moving, without any real "bad" guys to hate or love. Still, his writing is good and it was an easy read. Better luck next time.
LibraryThing member lbswiener
Mad River is a story that goes on and on. Our hero Virgil Flowers encounters several decisions of right and wrong. The characters live horrible lives where there is no sign of anything but dreams. There are murders, brutal beatings, hunger, sex, rape, and lots of violence in this book. Only three
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and half stars were given in this review because the story went on longer than necessary. Show Less
LibraryThing member Dianekeenoy
As always, you can't go wrong with a John Sanford novel. Virgil Flowers is starting to grow on me. I absolutely love the Lucas Davenport "Prey" books and wasn't thrilled with a new character but Virgil definitely grows on you. I listened to this in the car and once again, it kept me running errands
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longer than I needed to. This is about three young people who make very poor decisions. Recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member CANewsome
When a modern Bonnie and Clyde start a rampage in rural Minnesota, only Virgil Flowers can stop the mayhem. Once again, John Sanford proves that the only thing more entertaining than watching the pursuit of a criminal mastermind is witnessing the unraveling of terminally stupid felons.
If you are
The difficulty of being a writer reviewing other works is seeing books through the eyes of craftsmanship and becoming overly familiar with the faults of even your favorite authors. But Sanford's writing is flawless as Flowers races against the clock to out-think these crazed young fugitives while keeping local vigilantism in check.
Sanford is a master, at the top of his game.
If you are
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not familiar with Virgil Flowers, he is the horn-dog investigator who gets results by doing everything a detective is not supposed to do. He is the antithesis of Lucas Davenport, Sanford's most prolific creation. He dresses like a rocker. He fishes on state time. He abhors violence, won't carry a gun, and tells everybody what he's up to, thus stirring small-town pots to boiling over.The difficulty of being a writer reviewing other works is seeing books through the eyes of craftsmanship and becoming overly familiar with the faults of even your favorite authors. But Sanford's writing is flawless as Flowers races against the clock to out-think these crazed young fugitives while keeping local vigilantism in check.
Sanford is a master, at the top of his game.
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LibraryThing member RickGeissal
Another terrific John Sandford book featuring Virgil Flowers.
Original publication date
2012-10
ISBN
9781620903186