Lucas Davenport goes west.But first he goes south, called from his home in Minnesota to the Louisiana swamp where hired killer Clayton Deese buried at least five people (the total is actually higher) before coming a cropper seven months ago with his latest target, Howell Paine. Things went sideways, sending Paine to the hospital and sentencing Deese to an ankle monitor he sliced through three days ago. Local FBI agent Sandro Tremanty, discovering Deese's absence, wants help from the U.S. marshals in rounding up his quarry so that he can implicate loan shark Roger Smith, who'd hired him to hurt Paine and send a warning to his other debtors. And there's another reason the feds would like to get Deese off the streets: His experiments in homicide have given him a taste for human flesh. Soon enough, Lucas, together with marshals Rae Givens and Bob Matees, has picked up Deese's trail, which leads first to Marina Del Rey, where he's joined his half brother, Marion Beauchamps, and Jayden Nast, "a guy with guns, who hates cops," in a brutal home-invasion crew. Conscientious detective work brings Lucas and the LAPD within a whisker of catching Deese, but he slips away from them and heads to Las Vegas with Genesis Cox, the blonde he's picked up, and John Rogers Cole, another accomplice. Deese and his cohort must constantly pull new jobs to support their gambling and drug habits, and it's hard to imagine their eluding the law for very long. But there are deeper threats to their racket. Roger Smith, who knows plenty about Deese, realizes he has every reason to get rid of him, and there turns out to be no honor among the thieves closer to home either.Professionally entertaining, with lots of realistically frustrating false hopesthough it's hard to worry very much about the leading question here: Will the franchise hero (Twisted Prey, 2018, etc.) succeed in bringing the crooks to justice before they wipe each other off the face of the Earth? Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In Thriller Award-winner Sandford's lackluster 29th thriller featuring Deputy U.S. Marshal Lucas Davenport (after 2018's Twisted Prey), New Orleans attorney and loan shark Roger Smith hires enforcer Clayton Deese to send a violent message to Howell Paine after Paine refuses to pay back the thousands he borrowed. The assignment goes awry when Paine resists and manages to bite off "like a feral tomcat, wrenching his head from side to side... a half-dollar-sized chunk of meat" from Deese's leg. The cops come for Deese later that day, leading to the thug's arrest on federal racketeering charges. After Deese fails to show up for his trial and his ankle monitor stops working, two of Davenport's colleagues are sent to Louisiana to track down Deese. They don't find him, but they do discover the fugitive had buried multiple bodies in the woods behind his home. That the remains were partially cannibalized before burial brings in Davenport, whose political connections enable him to choose his own assignments. Davenport pursues Deese across the country to Las Vegas, Nev., but the plot never gathers much steam, and an unrealistic twist in the final confrontation with Deese is another minus. Fans will hope for a return to form next time. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Deese is a New Orleans hit man who works mostly for a lawyer and loan shark named Roger Smith. It's worked well through the years, though Smith has never known about Deese's propensity for cannibalizing his murder victims. When a burial ground linked to Deese is found with several munched-on corpses, U.S. Marshall Lucas Davenport is called to assist the FBI in tracking Deese. With the help of federal agents Bob and Rae (a longstanding series joke referencing the comedy duo Bob and Ray), Davenport follows the trail to Los Angeles, where Deese has hooked up with a home-invasion crew, who have been hugely successful preying on anonymous Southern California multimillionaires. They terrorize but never injure, and then walk away with cash, jewelry, and valuable art. It's a good gig. But as soon as Deese shows up, it all goes to hell. His violence changes the dynamic and brings law enforcement too close, prompting the crew to head for Las Vegas, which is where Lucas, Bob, and Rae close in. The Prey novels are wildly entertaining with their clever plotting, mordant humor, and smart-ass dialogue. This one doesn't break the pattern.--Wes Lukowsky Copyright 2019 Booklist