Naked Prey - John Sandford

Lucas Davenport had left Minneapolis Police Department, married to Weather, and got a baby boy named Sam. His house had been renovated and bigger than before. He followed his old boss - now the head of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Lucas’s new job was designated “Director, Office of Regional Studies”: to fix crime for the governor.

Two naked bodies were found, hanging from a tree in countryside, a few miles outside Armstrong. One white woman, one black man. The governor was afraid that this might be a lynching, so Lucas Davenport was sent over to cover the case. Working with his friend Del Capslock, FBI, BCA, local cops and also with a 12 year-old Letty West, Lucas soon found that it had not been a lynching, but murders. The story got interesting because victims had done something bad in the past. I think this is the first time Lucas didn’t solve the whole crime - although the book does end well.

Naked Prey is one of my favourite books from the Prey series – although when I think about it, I actually enjoyed reading each one of them. I liked this book because of the plot twists and, most of all, because the relationship between Lucas and Letty West. Letty West was independent, took care of her drunken mom, and had a bad mouth. She reminded me of this character from a Japanese series, Shuzu Aishawa.

Letty West was the witness who had seen the murderer’s car. Lucas and Del first talked to her to hear her story, but then they met her often because she knew a lot about the locals and the town. She was not only a witness, she was a wit. Lucas’s behaviour towards her seemed rude, but later we could see that he cared about her a lot. There was this warm scene where Lucas picked her up and cradled her when she was hurt, calling her ‘honey’- while earlier in that day he threatened her that he would poison her if she lost his watch – which he was lending to her.