The book starts off with the murder and murderer. Then its all about catching him so I new the ending wouldn't be great. But the rest of it was. Sandford writes well and his descriptions of winter time in southern Minnesota felt real. Flowers wasn't too outrageous though his predicting when he would solve the crime was a little unctious. ( )

Old high school rivalries show up, though no one knows why or how. Flowers gets stuck trying to find the murderer. Along the way, he also finds plenty of interesting secrets many residents would rather not have come out in the open. certainly some sexual secrets... ( )

I don't know when I've read a murder mystery that was so entertaining. The setting was well characterized with small town Minnesota conversations, the ice fishing and snowmobile "sled" rides, comments on how long people can tolerate being outdoors in whatever coat they were wearing. Virgil Flowers' modus operandi of keeping the locals informed of his findings may not be proper procedure, but it worked to draw the suspect into reacting. Even a small town has a mix of characters that are thoroughly modern: tattoo artist (but not top tier), couple of characters are gay and accepted by the town (tho not without questioning how one could not be sure of which gender they were). ( )

I've said it before, probably many times, but I love the Virgil Flowers series. The audiobook versions are very well done, but I also like the print versions. In fact, this was the most enjoyable book I've read since... well, since the last one I read, a few weeks ago.

This story had an interesting twist to a murder that kept everyone guessing for most of the book. Two different people independently contributed to the murder.

It starts out with the murder, and we know exactly who did it. It was an accident, and the murderer was considered accident-prone, so it fits. He accidentally killed the woman he loved all his life, who, like his former wife, had no good feelings about him at all. Like many of the lawbreakers in this series, he wasn't an evil man, and was somewhat sympathetic, although not very bright, it seems, as he tried to hide the murder rather than turning himself in. But this worked in his favor because nobody suspected he'd do something like that.

Virgil is interrupted from his vacation where he was working on an article for a nature magazine, one of his part-time pursuits while not working for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. He's a nature lover, and loves the outdoor life in Minnesota. In fact, this series almost makes the are sound like a nice place to live, until it talks about the snow and cold (just kidding, Minnesotans, I'm sure there are lots of nice things about living there, I just never lived in a cold climate).

The main murder is an interesting story, and there is a side story that is more for entertainment than a big mystery, although it gets Virgil beat up fairly badly. Seems there's a group modifying Barbie dolls by inserting a voice box with sounds of Barbie having sex, and selling them on the internet (of course). Mattel is not amused, although others didn't agree. For a small town with few job opportunities, a lot of people are not too happy that Virgil is helping to stop their little enterprise. Virgil, and a private detective hired by Mattel, are trying to find a woman who seems to be the head of this group, but there's kind of a running gag going on where everyone claims not to know who this woman is.

As usual, the people are often very funny, and often very likable, and the story never drags or bogs down. My only disappointment is that this leaves me with no more books in the series to read, as I already read the last one, thanks to NetGalley. I just hope there are a lot more to come and I live long enough to read them all.


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Love John Sandford, but I found this one a little to busy so to speak. I was sure who the killer was but with all that was going on in the book I wasn't so sure again until the last 1/4 of the book. Will wait patiently to read your next one. ( )