46. Rough Country - John Sandford

Virgil Flowers #3

Audio read by Eric Conger

2009, Penguin Audio

388 pgs.

Adult murder Mystery

Finished 9/23/2013

Goodreads Rating: 4.05

My Rating:

Loved it (4)

Acquired: PBS

Setting:  Rural Minnesota

My comments:  I adore Virgil Flowers.  He's taken over first place: I'm having to move Harry Bosch to second (Cork O'Connor stays in third). I'm discovering that after reading the first in this series, it doesn't matter the order your read them in.  This foray is full of lesbians..... interesting..... and even if this particular story didn't grab me quite as much as the others I've read, it's still Virgil Flowers, and the way he acts and thinks and dresses help me still like the book a LOT.

Goodreads Review:  Virgil's always been known for having a somewhat active, er, social life, but he's probably not going to be getting too many opportunities for that during his new case. While competing in a fishing tournament in a remote area of northern Minnesota, he gets a call from Lucas Davenport to investigate a murder at a nearby resort, where a woman has been shot while kayaking. The resort is for women only, a place to relax, get fit, recover from plastic surgery, commune with nature, and while it didn't start out to be a place mostly for those with Sapphic inclinations, that's pretty much what it is today.

Which makes things all the more complicated for Virgil, because as he begins investigating, he finds a web of connections between the people at the resort, the victim, and some local women, notably a talented country singer. The more he digs, the more he discovers the arrows of suspicion that point in many directions, encompassing a multitude of motivations: jealousy, blackmail, greed, anger, fear. Then he finds that this is not the first murder, that there was a second, seemingly unrelated one, the year before. And that there's about to be a third, definitely related one, any time now. And as for the fourth . . . well, Virgil better hope he can catch the killer before that happens. Because it could be his own.