Masked Prey by John Sandford

The daughter of a U.S. Senator is monitoring her social media presence when she finds a picture of herself on a strange blog. And there are other pictures . . . of the children of other influential Washington politicians, walking or standing outside their schools, each identified by name. Surrounding the photos are texts of vicious political rants from a motley variety of radical groups.

It's obviously alarming--is there an unstable extremist tracking the loved ones of powerful politicians with deadly intent? But when the FBI is called in, there isn't much the feds can do. The anonymous photographer can't be pinned down to one location or IP address, and more importantly, at least to the paper-processing bureaucrats, no crime has actually been committed. With nowhere else to turn, influential Senators decide to call in someone who can operate outside the FBI's constraints: Lucas Davenport.

Liked the book; hated the editing. It was as quick-paced and enjoyable as ever Davenport book is, but the editing was sloppy, and that just takes me right out of the story when that happens. Kind of like when you'd see the boom mike in the frame of a TV show or movie back in the day. There was one point where they questioned one guy in his home and later arrested a different guy and were discussing what would happen to him afterward and kept referring to the arrested man by the questioned man's name. Towards the end of the book, after using the name of the town dozens of times in the preceding pages, the name was spelled wrong in the title of the police department in that town.

I know this is like being a grammar nazi to some, but I can't help it. I used to love Robert Crais' books, but had to stop reading them as I'd get jolted out of the story by details gone wrong like this all the time. I don't blame the authors, but you'd think there'd be some pretty strict proofing before a book like this went to press.

While I do miss the old cast of characters, I very much enjoy Bob and Rae. Lucas was definitely up to his old tricks this time too. Felt like the old days.