"Silent Prey"

In John Sandford's, "Silent Prey," which is the 4th book in the Prey series starring Lucas Davenport, Davenport has left the police force and is still making a lot of money working on his video games but they've taken a new direction -- computer simulations of police tactical problems.  His personal life is not so great since his girlfriend left with their daughter and he's a bit at loose ends.

However, his biggest case -- catching the murderer Dr. Michael Bekker (a psychotic pathologist) -- is coming back to haunt him as Bekker manages to escape jail and start killing people in New York.  Some people think Davenport should have killed Bekker when he was a Lt. with the police department -- instead of capturing him.

Davenport's life is about to get a little more complicated with the arrival of a New York policewoman, Lily, he'd worked a case with before and gotten emotionally/sexually involved with.  Lily's boss wants Davenport to come to New York to provide insight into Bekker and handle the media ostensibly but he has another agenda, too.  Someone is killing bad guys in New York and that might not upset the local police force but, whoever it is, has taken to killing a few cops now, too.  Lily's boss wants Davenport to go undercover to see if he can find out who is behind the killings because he suspects it's someone internally.

The Bekker case has Davenport paired with Barb Fell who is working the case and has street contacts that might prove useful.  Since Lily currently has a love in her life -- a policeman recovering from a heart attack, Barb seems a logical choice for a current romantic entanglement except that has its own complications.

As Davenport works both cases, some clues begin to surface pointing out why Bekker might be so successful in finding victims in New York.  As the hunt for Bekker seems to be coming to a successful conclusion, so does Davenport's theories about the police involvement in the street killings.  As usual, Sandford is a master at weaving a complex tale that holds the reader's interest and makes it difficult to put the book down until its conclusion.  Off to look for the next book in the Davenport Prey series!  pazt