“Bad Blood”  by John Sandford

Review #193

A Virgil Flowers Mystery

 

Nineteen year-old Bob Tripp hits farmer Jacob Flood in the head with a T-ball bat at the   grainery.  Tripp's subsequent attempt to make murder look like an accident fails.

The morning after Tripp's arrest, he's found hanging in his cell. Warren County sheriff Lee Coakley seeks Flowers' help to investigate what role, if any, deputy Jim Crocker, the officer on duty at the jail at the time, played in Tripp's death.

A link to the earlier murder of a young woman leads Flowers and Coakley to members of a small church with strange ways. As the pair become aware of the magnitude of the unspeakable crimes (rape, child abuse, incest) behind the deaths, they search desperately for a lever to pry open what turns out to be Flowers' biggest case to date.

Warning: This book contains references to specific  words used when sex acts are involved.

John Sandford is an excellent mystery writer and he hasn’t failed this time either.

I have to say, though, I still prefer his Lucas Davenport books. (Davenport is Flowers’ boss.)