Twisted Prey

At the start of bestseller Sandford’s thoroughly entertaining 28th novel featuring Lucas Davenport (after 2017’s Golden Prey), political consultant Cecily Whitehead is driving Porter Smalls, a former U.S. senator from Minnesota, back to Washington, D.C., from his cabin in West Virginia when a pickup truck plows into their vehicle, knocking it off the road down a steep hill. Smalls suffers only a bloody nose, but Whitehead dies. Smalls believes this was an assassination attempt organized by Sen. Taryn Grant, who used a shady operative to plant child pornography on his computer in their senate race two years earlier, which Grant narrowly won. Convinced that she views him as an obstacle to her planned run for the presidency, Smalls asks his friend Davenport, now a U.S. marshal, for help. Davenport, who’s certain that Grant has committed three murders but doesn’t have the proof, is only too happy to get another crack at her. Davenport and Grant, aided by their respective allies, engage in a deadly cat-and-mouse game that will keep the reader turning the pages up to the exciting climax. This long-running series shows no sign of losing steam. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Apr.)