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Broken Prey  By  cover art

Broken Prey

By: John Sandford
Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
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Publisher's summary

The "Big Three" are a trio of inmates locked up in the Minnesota Security Hospital over the years, each a particularly vicious serial killer, each with his own distinct style and propensities. Everybody feels much safer knowing that they're behind bars. Except...there's a new killer on the loose. And his handiwork bears a disturbing resemblance to some of the finer points practiced by the Big Three, details that never even made the papers.

Lucas Davenport and his team quickly hone in on a possible suspect, a man named Charlie Pope, who was released from the same hospital prison a few weeks earlier, and who now seems to have cut himself free from his court-imposed ankle bracelet and disappeared. But is he really the one? And why do the Big Three look so agitated?

Brilliantly suspenseful, consistently surprising, once again, Sandford has outdone himself.

©2005 John Sandford (P)2005 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"John Sandford delivers yet another blistering tale from the life of Lucas Davenport, surely one of the most attractive cops on the crime-fiction beat today.... The plot is complex and full of red herrings." (The Associated Press)

"Sandford ratchets up the tension and suspense in tough, spare prose that shows us rather than tells us what is going on.... Broken Prey more than lives up to its predecessors in what has become a bestselling franchise in the mystery/thriller genre." (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

"Nonstop tension." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

What listeners say about Broken Prey

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    1,626
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Performance
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  • 4 Stars
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Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Top drawer entertainment - as usual!

Personally, I found Broken Prey to be just as entertaining and captivating as all his other stories. Sandford is of my all time favorite authors, and Ferrone is one of my favorite readers, and I was not disappointed. Couldn't put the story down.

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24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Good story, except

I have listened to several of his other books and they are entertaining. This was too, but had a distinctly anti-gay hostility in tone that went beyond necessary in the story. It felt just like someone who wrote a story about any other group where there was real animosity toward that group under the surface.

Compare this to Mo Hayder's book,which involves pedophilia and murder, the author has a reality check in her prose.

Sandford sure sounds like a man who has "issues" which marred the exposition of his story.

:-(

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20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful Thriller!

I love the Prey series and I've read or/and listened to most of them. This book is just as good as the previous ones. It can be a bit graphic in parts, but so can real police work (I would think). Anyway, there's plenty of action, mystery and suspense to keep you listening until the end. I love all of the characters, and the author does a wonderful job of making them seem so real. I thought that the reader was fantastic, too!

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19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Ed
  • 02-14-07

The usual group of psychopaths

If you've read through most of these customer reviews, you'll understand that very few readers are neutral on Sandford's Prey series and narrator Ferrone. If this was the first Sandford book you've listened to, then it's understandable that you would not like it if you're adverse to graphic descriptions of violence. It is trademark of the Prey series, along with one or more psychopaths who redefine evil. Broken Prey had several who fit into this category and were collectively about as horrid as you could get. This book differs from the other Prey books I've listened to because this one kept you guessing as to who the primary villian was. I don't think this book was the best in the Prey series, but it was entertaining given the genre. And Farrone is perfect for the Prey series and was excellent with the narration of this book. If you like the Prey series, you'll like Broken Prey.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

At His Best

Davenport is at his best in this book. It moved quickly, and you couldn't wait to reach the end. If you like Davenport's character from the other prey novels, you'll like this one too.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Narration not up to par

How a narrator handles the character of Lucas Davenport can make or break an audio presentation of a John Sandford book. Earlier narrators -- Stephen Lang and Eric Conger come to mind -- nailed it. Richard Ferrone doesn't, and Sandford's excellent story suffers for it. Lucas, the sensitive tough guy, or the tough sensitive guy, or whatever he is, just sounds whiny in this rendition. Ferrone's work isn't all bad, not by any stretch, but his Lucas misses the mark.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

WOW - SICK - SURPRISING - AWESOME

This is an LD favorite for me. Sometimes Sanford let's you know right up front who the bad guys are but in this one he keeps you guessing and it really pays off in the end. I really enjoyed the build up of a pair of characters who you don't know their relationship to the plot until the very end. It was interesting the way he tells the tale.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

dissapointing

I really liked the first books in this series, but it seems to be going downhill. Instead of good plot and character development, Sandford resorts to gratuitous swearing (f**ing this and f**ing that). I actually talk like that myself and hearing it used every other line in this book is making me realize how stupid it sounds.

Also, there's no possible way the reader could "get it" right up to the end. Don't know about the rest of you, but I prefer it when I don't get it, but the clues were there all along.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Disturbing

Potential readers deserve to be warned about the content of this book. This is one of the most disturbing mysteries I have read/heard. After about a hundred pages I stopped reading it. It is one thing to hear on the news about real evil, but being entertained by it is quite a different thing. You should read this book only if you are interested in feeding the dark side of your mind.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Sandford's run is broken

I have enjoyed this series for a long time. Broken Prey was a big disappointment. Just as Robert B. Parker has been turning out what are essentially short stories marketed as novels Sandford has padded a small story with a lot of meaningless filler to sell it as a novel.

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3 people found this helpful