Readers and writers: Sandford’s latest, plus fiction and nonfiction with eyes on the water

Mary Ann Grossmann, Pioneer Press
·7 min read
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Davenport and Flowers are back in John Sandford’s 33rd Prey novel today, and we have fiction and nonfiction about canoes, ships, big water and rivers.

“Judgment Prey”: by John Sandford (Putnam, $29.95)

“You’re a little testy, and not in a particularly fun way,” Virgil said.

“I know,” Lucas said. “I can’t help it, because Lundgren told me something important about who killed Sand, but I don’t know what she told me.”

“What? I didn’t pick up a single thing from her,” Virgil said. “We should go back and ask her.”

“That’s the problem,” Lucas said. “I had it, but I don’t know what it is, and I don’t think she’d know, either.”

“Something about cheese? About goats?”

“No. Goats had nothing to do with it. I don’t think.” — from “Judgment Prey”

Somewhere in the middle of “Judgment Prey” Lucas Davenport calls his wife and Virgil Flowers calls his significant other to tell the women they will be late working on their current case.

Maybe that’s why this story has (dare we say it?) an aging-guys vibe. Characters in a series have to change and grow or readers lose interest, and both men have plenty of scars from exciting and dangerous past encounters with bad guys. But the raucous spirit of some of the previous Prey books is not here, as Davenport and Flowers are now family men. Virgil, especially, has lost his chick-magnet persona, as he should now that he’s in a committed relationship. But we miss the devil-may-care, waitress-flirting guy who towed his boat when he investigated so he could stop and fish.

Davenport, a deputy U.S. marshal, and Flowers, a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator, are recovering from wounds they suffered at the conclusion of the previous book. Davenport was the most badly injured but he’s getting better and he’s a little bored watching TV. His boss is sort of sympathetic, but when federal judge Alex Sand and his two young sons are shot to death in their St. Paul home, Davenport is ordered to get off his butt and help with the investigation. Soon he’s joined by Flowers, and even though the FBI and St. Paul police are involved, the two friends set out to do some old-fashioned police legwork to try to solve this crime that sets the metro area on edge and seems to have no motive.

Sand’s wife, Margaret Cooper, stands to inherit millions of dollars, some of which had been promised by her husband to a Twin Cities charity that houses the homeless. Margaret, though, isn’t much interested in charity. She’s a smart, self-confident former actress who only wants to shoot the person who murdered her husband and sons. She’s willing to do whatever she can to help Davenport and Flowers, but they don’t know she is unraveling and making plans to lure the killer to her home. When the partners find out, they have to race to keep her from getting more people killed. Meanwhile, the head of the charity is frantic about getting the money he thought the late judge was going to give him.

In their pursuit of every lead, Davenport and Flowers meet some colorful characters, but mostly the banter is confined pretty much to the two guys, especially when Flowers waxes poetic about farm animals because he’s spent so much time traveling around southern Minnesota farm country. As the men drive to interviews, Flowers regales Davenport with information about the usefulness and backgrounds of goats, elk and pigs, until Lucas tells him to shut up — three times.

It will be interesting to see where Sandford, pen name for Pulitzer Prize-winning former Minnesotan John Camp, takes this series. Will he bring back characters like Virgil’s friend Johnson Johnson (named for an outboard motor), who’s mentioned in this book but never appears? We can only hope.

“Until the Big Water Takes Them”: by John Jensvold (Kirk House Publishers, $18.95)

...to assemble such a large parcel along the shore, I could envision four or five teardowns of resorts like the Palisade must have been necessary to simply consolidate the site. The teardown would have been family cabins, traditional resorts, maybe motels, or some combination of the three. The fact remained that those little histories, those family stories, were lost, imploded, just like the people who gave them life, all dying for the sake of a massive corporate investment by impersonal money. I was biased against big business because I felt it was biased against me. –– from “Until the Big Water Takes Them”

Owen Martin is a nice, self-made man with lots of building skills who loves Lake Superior and the land around it. Having nothing better to do, he takes a summer job at the Palisade Point resort on the North Shore. The 11-cabin resort is owned by sisters Ann and Roxie Martini. Their father is dying in a facility in Duluth and they don’t want him to know that the resort he built, cared for and loved is losing money. It’s one of the last such small resorts in the area, an old-fashioned place that doesn’t offer the amenities of the big resorts popping up along the shore.

Martin, who narrates the story, starts work even before he’s officially hired when a huge rock takes out the cabin that’s home to Roxie, a lesbian who spends part of her time with her partner. Ann is gracious to Martin, suggesting he live in part of her house. Roxie is cold and wary.

While Ann and Martin are drawn to one another, the sisters are fending off a developer who wants their land to build a huge resort that will be the first of three on the lake. Already there is one near Palisade Point, taking business away from the small resorts. The reader knows that the developer is frantic to get the sisters’ land. If he doesn’t, investors will bail and he’ll be broke as his financial house of cards collapses.

There is no way to classify this novel. It’s a romance between a man and a woman and between humans and the ever-changing North Shore, as well as a vanishing way of life. It’s also a valentine to men who work with their hands, as Martin rebuilds the ruined cabin and realizes the care with which the sisters’ father built the resort’s structures. Even after the father dies, Martin hears his voice telling him to use his skills carefully whether he’s measuring shelves or fitting windows.

The author holds an undergraduate degree from St. Olaf College and an MBA from the University of St. Thomas. He and his family have made many trips to the North Shore.

“Angry Water”: by Allen Theisen (Kirk House Publishers, $18.95)

They both stroked hard to move the boat forward, but not fast enough to overcome the current coming off from the nose of the bend. The swift water swept the canoe across the narrow river, then sideways against the branches. The pine boughs forced both Tom and Al to lean upstream. Within a few seconds, they abandoned the canoe into the cold May water. This capsized the canoe and swept them around the end of the branches, clearing the tree. — from “Angry Water”

This fast read lives up to its subtitle, “An Outdoor Adventure,” with thrills and literal spills as we follow five male friends celebrating high school graduation with a canoeing/camping trip along the twisty northwest Wisconsin river system. All but one are experienced canoeists, but the rivers are sometimes unfriendly, as the young men take a wrong turn that almost traps them in endless bogs and maneuver rapids that challenge their skills. (There is a helpful map that shows the watery path taken by the canoeists.)

One of the men is developing a relationship with a girl back home, and he takes some risks so she can meet the canoeing party at the end of their trip. This story would move even faster if this budding romance was eliminated. One entire chapter, for instance, involves whether the young woman and a friend will be allowed to go on the trip, their preparations and other unnecessary logistics.

The rest of of this buddy-book is exciting, including how spooked the men are after being told a story by a fisherman about the fearsome Wendigo that is part of Native American culture.

“Angry Water” would be be great adventure book for boys averse to reading.

The author has been influenced by outdoor life in the St. Croix River Valley. A former St. Paulite, he is a graduate of North Dakota State University.

“Too Much Sea for Their Decks: Shipwrecks of Minnesota’s North Shore and Isle Royale”: by Michael Schumacher (University of Minnesota Press, $24.95)

I am also reminded, far more often, of the incredible beauty of the water, whether it is a clear, crystalline blue, or tinged light brown after the shallows have been stirred up by a recent storm, or is slate gray. And it goes on as far as the eye can see… This is the mystique that brought so many sailors to their jobs. — from “Too Much Sea for Their Decks.”

There are famous Great Lakes shipwrecks we all know about, such as the Edmund Fitzgerald, but Michael Schumacher writes about wrecks less familiar while also telling the history of Great Lakes shipping.

His book chronicles wrecked schooners, wooden freighters, early steel-hulled steamers, passenger vessels and bulk carriers lost to the frigid waters of the Great Lakes.

We read of the Stranger, a slender wooden schooner swallowed by the lake in 1875, and the mysterious loss of the Kamloops, a freighter that went down in a storm in 1927 and whose sailors were found on Isle Royale the following spring. They had escaped the wreck only to die of exposure on the island.

The book is arranged chronologically and presented in three sections covering Minnesota’s North Shore, Isle Royale, and the three biggest storms in Minnesota’s Great Lakes history Complementing the text are fascinating old pictures of the vessels before and, in some cases, after the wrecks.

Schumacher, who lives in Wisconsin, has written five previous books on Great Lake shipwrecks and 25 narrative documentaries on Great Lakes shipwrecks and lighthouses.

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