Storm Front - John Sandford

Storm Front is the latest book in Virgil Flowers series and another one with a title I can't understand. I also don't like the core of the story - I had reading enough book about conspiracy and discovery of buried artifacts that could rewrite the Bible etc. At first I couldn't believe John Sandford took this kind of theme (but I had to because I was reading it) and I really hoped he stuck to the usual state crimes, or rural state crimes.

A preacher who worked in excavation site in Jezreel, Israel, found a stone, part of a pillar, with an inscription in primitive Hebrew and hieroglyphics about King Solomon. The preacher stole the stone and brought it back to his hometown in Mankato, Minnesota, wanted to sell it to the highest bidder. The Israelis wanted the stone back and they sent an investigator. Mankato was also Virgil Flowers's hometown, so as the only resident BCA agent in the southern end of the state he was sent to pick up the investigator at airport and drive her around to meet the preacher and find the stone, even though he was investigating another case: a counterfeit lumber ring. This kind of case was actually for the FBI but they asked the BCA in because of local knowledge and the BCA owed them one that month and the boss said OK... etc.

This was an enjoyable story, actually, with spies, Hezbollah, show-business archaeologist, professor of ancient mysteries, ex-Turkish intelligence officers... One interesting thing I learned from this Virgil Flowers series is: an Apache could look like a Vietnamese or a Lebanese, makes me able to have more imagination what Winnetou looked like.

In Virgil Flowers series, Lucas Davenport (Flowers's boss) seemed never to do field works. This was actually the ideal condition Davenport's boss preferred. In Phantom Prey, Davenport's boss said: "Lucas, you're supposed to be the brains of the operation. You're not supposed to get shot in alleys. Not any more. Those days are over." But I do love reading Davenport doing field works. John Sandford usually made Davenport hurt in the end of a book so that time flied quickly - in the next book he was older by several months because he had to rest before the next big case. In the latest Prey series, Davenport was around fifty. Compare that to Virgil Flowers series: in this 7th book, Flowers was still in his early thirties.