Mortal Prey - John Sandford

In Mortal Prey, hitwoman Clara Rinker from Easy Prey was back. At the end of Easy Prey, she fled from Minneapolis and Deputy Chief Lucas Davenport. In the beginning of Mortal Prey, she was having a quiet happy life in Mexico with her boyfriend, son of a local druglord. Then a sniper shot her boyfriend to death, while she was injured and lost her baby. She knew that it had to be her old bosses in St. Louis who had given the order, so she went back to St Louis and executed the 4 people who she believed had been responsible.

The FBI tried to catch Rinker for murders for years and because Lucas Davenport knew about Clara Rinker than any other law officers, they recruited him. The FBI was described here as a bunch of people who didn’t know what they should do, even though they had all the files and technology. Lucas knew that the federal agents looked down on him, so he worked with local cops instead and got useful informations which helped the FBI.

Clara Rinker was an antagonist character we could sympathize with. She could be a heroine in a movie. Like in “Tony Arzenta” (1972), for example, where Tony avenged the death of his wife and son, who had been killed in a car-bomb after he told his mafia boss that he wanted to get out, by killing his ex-bosses one by one. Throughout the book I hoped that Lucas could never catch her. I even wondered by the FBI went after her and not her bosses. The FBI had known that Clara had had bosses who ordered the murders, and who had been more guilty: the brain or the hand? Perhaps both had been as guilty, but to go after Clara and protect her ex-bosses? I think I prefer the police didn’t do anything at all and let them kill each other.

There was this sentence describing what Lucas did after arriving in St Louis: “He dumped his bag on the bed, powdered his nose, splashed water on his face, and opened the envelope.” I thought only we, women, powdered our noses. Maybe pretty men do it, but my impression on Lucas was: he was a tough guy. Also if after powdering his nose, he splashed water on his face, the powder would be gone with the water, right? So what was the point? Perhaps the powder was waterproofed? And where he got the nose powder from? Was the hotel room prepared it or he always carried it in his bag?

I also cannot understand how Americans could drink Coke (even if it is a diet coke) before breakfast. Perhaps it’s from habit. I myself would get a diarrhea.