"Storm Front"

John Sandford's, "Storm Front," is the next to the last novel currently in his Virgil Flowers series.  So far I love all of Sandford's series but I particularly enjoyed this Flowers' novel. 

Virgil's boss, Lucas Davenport, calls him in to work on a case involving a local professor from his area who has been accused by the Israelis of stealing a precious artifact from a dig he was working on.  The professor has a wife with Alzheimer's and he's dying of cancer and the theft seems totally out of character for him and his long career of assisting with digs.

An Israeli investigator has been sent to retrieve the relic and Flowers has been assigned to assist her but things get tricky when the original woman who shows up keeps being accused (by everyone they question) of being part of the Mossad.  As it turns out, the original investigator has been "detained" prior to getting to the U.S. and this woman has taken her place.  As soon as the real investigator arrives, the imposter fades  into the background but doesn't totally disappear.

Lots of individuals are showing an interest in the artifact that it appears the professor is preparing to sell.  His son is out of the area but Flowers contacts the professor's daughter to see if she can help him find her father.
There is also a woman, "Ma" Nobles, that Flowers has been investigating for a possible counterfeit lumber selling ring.  Even "Ma" gets involved in the investigation when it turns out the professor did her family a big favor when she was a girl that changed the course of her life so she feels she owes him.  Despite the name, "Ma," "Ma" is young and well developed and there may be more than an investigation into her criminal activities on Virgil's part that interests him.

As usual, there are some twists and turns in this Sandford novel that kept me guessing to the end and I was unable to put it down (and it's 376 pages in hardback!) until I'd finished it.  pazt