A Hillary Clinton-like presidential candidate is slated for death in bestseller Sandford's average if topical 26th Lucas Davenport thriller (after 2015's Gathering Prey). Lucas has quit the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, but the state's governor, Elmer Henderson, needs his help. Henderson is running for president in the primaries against Michaela Bowden, who's seeking to be the first woman to hold that office. Henderson expects her to win and hopes that she will name him as her running mate. However, he fears that she may be assassinated after two people separately approach him and advise him to "be ready for the nomination" in case something were to happen to Michaela. With little more than a bad photograph of one of the two to go on, Lucas must identify the plotters before it's too late. Sandford reveals the plans of the would-be assassins, Marlys Purdy and her son, Cole, from the opening chapter, and the plot follows a familiar path toward the dramatic resolution that suggests a new direction for the long-running series. Readers who are looking for yet another assassination thriller that paints within the lines will be satisfied. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

*Starred Review* Marlys Purdy is a progressive leftover from the Iowa farm movement, which gained traction in the Midwest during the family-farm crisis of the eighties. The most well-known manifestation of that time was the Farm Aid concert series. Marlys' son Cole is high-functioning but definitely damaged after an IED rattled his brain during a tour in Iraq. The Purdys lost their farm in the eighties, and Marlys' husband committed suicide. The wound has festered for 30 years, and now Marlys and Cole decide they will assassinate Michaela Bowden, the Democratic front-runner for the presidential nomination, who is aligned with the establishment. Her exit will elevate Minnesota Governor Elmer Henderson, a progressive, into the lead. At least that's how Marlys and Cole envision it. But Henderson senses danger and asks Lucas Davenport, a private citizen now but formerly head of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, to investigate. They agree that, if the threat is real, the most likely venue for an assassination would be the Iowa State Fair, which takes place in advance of the Iowa caucuses. From there, it's an investigatory long march always detail-rich in Sandford's hands to the remnants of the progressive farm movement. The latest Prey novel is exciting, politically astute, and ultimately terrifying. Sandford and Davenport are in top form.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2016 Booklist

Forget the Iowa caucuses. The real way to effect political change in the nation's heartland, according to Lucas Davenport's latest antagonist, is a carefully calibrated assassination. Marlys Purdy has been through it all, and she's come to realize one thing for sure: the deck is stacked in favor of wealthy farmers, and Michaela Bowden's shoo-in presidential campaign isn't going to change that situation. The only hope for Marlys and her sons, straight-arrow Jesse and war-damaged Cole, is the election of Minnesota's left-wing governor, Elmer Henderson, and the best way to clear his path to the Democratic nomination is to remove Bowden with extreme prejudice. As the Purdys plot, Henderson reaches out to Lucas, who's left Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (Gathering Prey, 2015, etc.) because he's concerned about several winking directives he's gotten from people at campaign stops to move to the center so he'll be able to win the nomination if anything should happen to Bowden. It doesn't take Lucas long to trace the messages to the Progressive People's Party of Iowa, but once he makes the connection, he slows down. That's partly because so many PPPI members are superannuated flower children who can barely chew their food, partly because the remainder are such self-convinced revolutionaries that it's hard to winnow the wheat from the chaff. Aging activist Joseph Likely, for instance, clearly knows more than he's willing to say about the suspects Lucas is seeking, and PPPI secretary Grace Lawrence is still hiding secrets about the Lennett Valley Dairy bombing years ago. Can Lucas, working without a badge, sift through the harmless and the tangential radicals in time to protect Bowden from the coup de grce he's certain is planned during her ill-advised visit to the Iowa State Fair? An efficient and unremarkable treatment of a story that keeps threatening to leap the gap from paranoid fantasies to tomorrow's headlines. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.