An elderly woman is murdered at home, apparently by kids looking for drug money. But it turns out that there are a couple of valuable antiques missing from the house, and so the suspicion forms that the apparent ransacking of the place and stealing of electronic goods may have been a front for a more professional operation. But as well as this case, Lucas has become involved with the investigation of a senator who's accused of having sex with a minor.

This book follows Broken Prey, which I was a bit disappointed with, and I had thought that perhaps it might be the start of a trend. Shouldn't have worried though: this shares very little of the themes of that book - in fact it's pretty tame by comparison. Not to say it's a bad one: while it's maybe not one of the best, it was a great read (again helped by Richard Ferrone).

The reader knows from almost the start who the killers are (unlike Secret Prey), although Lucas doesn't work this out until nearly the end of the book. The two crimes mentioned above become interlinked in a plausible way, although I thought Lucas should have spotted the common factor earlier than he did.

Things I liked: there were a couple of sequences where the cops are trailing a suspect, using a bunch of different cars and which peel off and rejoin the chase at intervals so as not to arouse suspicion. This was really well written (and read), gripping stuff. And a couple of times a major character was killed with very little preliminary: it was a bit of a surprise - you felt "hang on, I was expecting some more plot development based on that person" - but the mark of a confident author I thought.

Hmm.. only two more Prey novels left to read now, then I'm going to re-read them in the right order.

Completed : 05-Jun-2008 (audiobook)