Rules Of Prey by John Sandford

Lieutenant Lucas Davenport is determined to track down a diabolically clever serial killer who leads a double life, carefully picks out his female victims, and taunts the police with notes signed "Maddog."

BLUF: I didn't find the main character appealing.

I feel guilty writing reviews of books that were written in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s. It was a whole different world back then. I would love to get into some of these popular author's books, but they seem to be mostly in series from this time and I just don't know where to start.

Rules of Prey follows “maddog”, a serial rapist/murderer who is obsessive about leaving no traces at his crime scenes with the exception to his own notes – each of which lists a rule that he keeps in order to ensure he doesn't get caught. Lucas Davenport, a playboy detective, will do anything to catch this killer – including feeding lies to the media, setting up unsuspecting victims, and withholding information from his station.

Rules of Prey introduces us to the murderer from the beginning. There isn't any mystery in who he is or his motives, but rather, when the police will uncover these truths. He's described as highly intelligent, but never shows this trait. Rather he is a player who enjoys the game he creates between him and the police.

Another individual described as intelligent is Lucas Davenport. I'm not buying it. I know it's indicative of the times, but I just can't respect a man who uses women as if they aren't worth anything ESPECIALLY a man who chooses to act this way after finding out one of the women, who he actually likes as a person, is pregnant. Talk about chauvinistic.. but hey, he only sleeps with smart women – maybe he hopes they'll rub off on him.

“You know enough of [the women that I have dated] to see the pattern,” he said. “I don't go out with dummies.”

Pros

A quick and easy read, good pacing with a decent story. The writing flows smoothly without much friction.

Cons

Weak characters, Davenport might have been a very likable guy in 1980s but he's not a very appealing hero, he's also pretty weird with women. The three women in the story are bland and uni-dimensional. I felt there were too many red herrings, some angle that's developed only for it to go nowhere by the next chapter.

This is the first book of the series, so I hope the later ones get better.

Lucas Davenport is an utterly charmless and mostly amoral character. Hard to see the appeal of this series.

This book was better than I expected. I´ve had it for a really long time so I´m glad I finally got around to reading it. I will definitely be reading more of this series.