Number 11

In the Virgil Flowers series is one of the best ever!  I loved Holy Ghost!  I couldn't wait for it so I bought it on audible!  Yes, another reason to love October is the coming of a new book about that F@(@# Flowers!

Set in Minnesota

any book set in Minnesota is going to get you 4 stars right there, it seems.  And then any book with Virgil where he contemplates his God?  Yeah.  5 stars for sure.  That F%9king Flowers.  Deep Freeze, 5 stars it is.  Yet another reason to love October.  A new Virgil Flowers book to devour. 

Virgie

There are some people who call Virgil, Virgie, I am pretty sure.  I think his girl friend does.  Yes, Virgil has a girl friend now!  Frankie.  Escape Clause is the ninth book in the series and Virgil is wonderful.  I just kinda realized the significance of the title, too!  Very clever!
This one is about tigers.  Amur tigers stolen from the Minnesota Zoo.  Great, great, just great stuff.  I also liked the ending.  I had gotten used to books ending kind of in the same way, and this one ends differently and I really liked it!

Fear Not!

When I read the last Virgil Flowers book I was a little worried.  It just didn't seem like Virgil.  But Deadline as brought Virgil back and silenced my worries!
Great, great, great book and it reminded me all over again why I fell in love with That F*&king Flowers in the first place.

So I can't help loving Virgil

I have to say that Storm Front wasn't a complete out-of-the-park homerun, like the previous six books.  I love John Sandford so much but I read that this book was written by him and his partner.  I just don't think it was Virgil-esque enough.  It seemed to lack a lot of Virgil's spirituality.  But I still gave it five out of five stars. 

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad River

Virgil Flowers is maturing and I am falling even deeper in love with him.  Mad River was a terrific book and I love the way the Flowers sticks up for the rights of human beings, for the way he thinks about God every night.  He's a truly good guy.  There was a chance that I wouldn't like Mad River, because the criminals are teenagers and they are comparable to (even the book mentions this) the folks in the movie Natural Born Killers.  But Sandford gets into the heads of the killers and you can see that they aren't like the NBK folks.  I really can't stand that movie.  It has ruined everything that Woody Harrelson has been in for me.  I just can't stand that movie!  I am sure that Woody Harrelson is a great guy and a great actor, but that movie...ugh.  I just felt so sick after I saw it. And this from the person who has seen Henry:  Portrait of a Serial Killer more than once!  So yeah, this one is about three older teenagers who go on a killing spree in a bunch of small towns in Minnesota.  And Virgil is off and running, trying to stop them.

Not too shocking

That I loved Shock Wave.  John Sandord.  Virgil Flowers.  Set in Minnesota.  What is not to love?  This one is about the expansion of a Walmart-Target kind of big box store, Pye Mart, that wants to move into the town of Butternut, Minnesota.  Someone is blowing up stuff in Butternut, people and everything, to keep the Pye Mart from being built.  I don't know if Butternut is a real town or what.  It kinda sounds a lot bigger than any I can find on google.
I do know that this book doesn't have a lot of humor in it, but I loved it anyway, because I love That F*&*ing Flowers!  It was a great book!  Can't wait to read Mad River!
Oh wait!  The town is Butternut Falls!  Not Butternut!  Which I don't see at all as really being in Minnesota!

Grand Rapids

Another wonderful book set in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. One of the main characters is a girl named Wendy who wants to make it big in Nashville. Her dad thinks she is good, but not that good. Her father says, "Nobody in Nashville is gonna pay any attention to a little girl from Grand Rapids."
Now, maybe not Nashville, but Hollywood would.  Because they did.  As we all remember.
I love That F$$* Flowers.  It is impossible not to love him.  Rough Country was about a murder of a homosexual woman and most of the characters are homosexuals as well.
The whole book is full of suspense and, as usual, the ending is a shoot-out or fight-out, in this case.  And full of tension.
The book was awesome!

I want to marry him. Yeah...I know, I'd be wife number four...

but still.  There are so many reasons to love That F*&king Flowers.  Bad Blood has about 5 new reasons.  He's such a hero!  The crimes in this novel are disgusting and horrible, foster "parent"-like.  It was hard to listen at times.  But a great book with whit and charm and justice.

Oh, Virgil

Oh Virgil
How I love thee.  Everything about thee.  I love your brains, your looks, your faith, your sense of humor.  Settling in to a Virgil Flowers' book is like going home, hanging out with an old friend.  So comfortable, yet always an enjoyable surprise.  Never predictable, but nothing off-putting.  Heat Lightning is the second Virgil Flowers book and Davenport is there, Shrake, Dell and Jenkins, too, Weather, Elle, but just on the edges, but it's great to see them again.  The end of the book leads right into of Wicked Prey.  Eric Conger does a perfect job reading the story.
And I've got another great audio lined up next with another old friend, Stone Barrington.  After that, the new Spenser.  I'll be enjoying my time in the car for hours to come.