This year's Virgil Flowers book (the 11th, I think), churned out by the reliable Sandford. In this one, there's a sniper who's wounded two people in a small town, which has recently become a mecca for Catholics following appearances of the Virgin Mary. Virgil is brought in to try and track down the shooter before his aim improves.

There's a section where Virgil breaks into a house because he can see through the window that the owner is inside and dead. In the cellar he finds a dog that's been locked in for several days and is nearly dead. When reading this I felt quite a sense of anger that someone could lock the dog there and leave it.

When Virgil asks a deputy, who's reading a Stephen King(?) book, to come along to help interview some rednecks: "good thing we're going to talk to heavily armed Nazis 'cause now I can quit reading this book. It's scaring the hell out of me"

I looked up “mud room” because he has used this in a couple of books and I assumed it was a room with a mud floor. But actually it's a little room where you put muddy boots etc..

Thought the "who did it" reveal was a bit sudden and not very satisfying but perhaps that's a reflection of what real life is like.

It was good - maybe not so good as Escape Clause and Deep Freeze but very readable and quite funny.

Completed : 09-Dec-2018