Virgil Flowers. It doesn't sound like a detective's name, nor is the character described by John Sandford one who looks like a detective. I often imagine that he looks and acts rather like James May. A bit pensive, more definitely spiritual, and at ease with the ladies. Although I'm not sure that May is ever completely at ease - then again neither is Flowers. He is after all a detective.
He does a fair bit of detecting and as Sandford writes more for Flowers, his books move past hard boiled into something much more subtle, and yet he never fails to kick us in the pants so that the book flies along to a satisfying conclusion. You couldn't pick a better theme for the times a tale of a religion gone bad and the distinction between privacy and secrecy.
What if, Sandford asks in this detective story, there was a small church somewhere in America suspected in murder and child pornography? What if they had only one person who ever left the fold, who was hard to find, and afraid to talk even if you found him? What business is it of any lawman to go snooping around with no evidence that points to other members of the church, but you suspect them?
It's a good story. I continue to read Sandford.
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