Rough Country (A Virgil Flowers Novel)

Virgil keeps getting better & better. Many twists & turns as many could be guilty, but the murders go on & Virgil is in the middle of everything!
No one could predict the last few chapters. John Sanford keeps producing excellent mysteries.

Davenport, and now Flowers, can always be relied upon to deliver an interesting story with believable characters, via clever and interesting writing. There were a couple marginal efforts earlier in the series, but Sandford always delivers at least a reliable airplane read, and like most of his recent work this novel has its moments of brilliance, too.

I enjoy any of the Virgil Flowers series and this one is no exception. If you aren't familiar with the Flowers series, this might not be the book I would recommend to start with, but if you have read some of the others, you will enjoy this one.

I enjoy any of the Virgil Flowers series and this one is no exception. If you aren't familiar with the Flowers series, this might not be the book I would recommend to start with, but if you have read some of the others, you will enjoy this one.

Adding to our Virgil Flowers books and hope there are many more. Always a great story with intense details and story. Have read as many of Sandford's books as I can find and hope he writes many more.

Ever since Lucas Davenport married Weather, he's lost a bit of his edge, especially with the women, and fellow BCA agent Virgil Flowers gives John Sandford more leeway in that respect.

Virgil Flowers is muskie fishing when Erica McDill, a lesbian advertising agent, is shot in the forehead while canoeing near Eagle Nest, a lodge that caters to women. Virgil zeroes in on Wendy Ashbach, a country Western singer who'd had a tryst with McDill. Soon Wendy's drummer, Berni Kelly; Zoe Tull, who did the books for the Eagle Nest, the Ashcraft family, and the members of McDill's advertising agency in the Cities become suspects. I was not able to figure out who done it until Sandford finally showed me, and he/she was right in front of my nose all the time. Sandford handles the interplay between Virgil and the lesbian community at the Eagle Nest quite well. He's never condescending, and there aren't too many jokes about "rug munchers" etc.

Virgil Flowers isn't as fleshed out as Lucas is. He's a blond surfer-looking dude with three ex-wives who lives in Mankato, a college town that's also the home of the Vikings summer camp. He also has a reputation for adding to the body count, although he denies it and proves it in the climactic scene. Lucas has that video game thing going on as a sideline, and he has that relationship with the smart nun and the interplay with the other BCA agents. We get a little of that here, but not nearly enough. Virgil definitely needs a sidekick or two.

Sandford does as much as he can with the lake country of northern Minnesota. We get a look at Lake Vermillion and some other place names that Minnesotans will be familiar with. He was obviously there when he wrote this. ROUGH COUNTY is not great literature, but it beats the usual dreck that passes for police procedural on the New York Times best seller list.

Sanford has a way of bringing his characters to real life. You feel you're there experiencing the experience. He's not helter skelter causing you to go back 3 pages to remember who in the heck he's talking about. Action interspersed with humor in my part of the world makes for me to be in a can't wait to read another book. I love the guy!

Sanford has a way of bringing his characters to real life. You feel you're there experiencing the experience. He's not helter skelter causing you to go back 3 pages to remember who in the heck he's talking about. Action interspersed with humor in my part of the world makes for me to be in a can't wait to read another book. I love the guy!

This was typical outstanding work by John Sandford. I've been reading his books since the first book in the Prey series came out. I truly enjoy reading his books. I mostly read them while working out on the elliptical and the time flies by without a thought of how hard I'm working. Thank you Mr. Sandford.

Overall, I did enjoy this book. Virgil Flowers is an interesting, different kind of police man. However for the first half of this novel, I had my doubts about where the story was going and wondered how much longer I was going to keep reading.

The first half of the story wandered around too much. There were so many different names of suspects, murder victims, police people from various agencies, resort guests, relatives, etc. that it really made it hard to follow who was doing what and when. Virgil and the story itself bounced around from place to place and it seemed that John Sandford was having a hard time trying to figure out what the plot of this novel was.

But just as I was getting antsy and rather bored, the story took off in the second half of the book. Things started to come together and make sense instead of just having another quirky fact added to the mix. Honestly if the book was not written by John Sandford and had a main character that I was familiar with, I might not have stuck it out as long as I did. But, I am glad I persevered as it was overall a very interesting and textured novel.

I especially enjoyed the last page of the book - kind of sad, kind of fun and certainly ironic!!