Bad Blood by John Sandford

Virgil went out the door, feeling a cop-like elation: he had them. But even as he went, he thought, Should I be happy that I was right, and that children are being abused? So he said that to Jenkins: “I got this rush, you know, being right about this. Being right about kids getting abused.”

“That’s not why you got the rush,” Jenkins said. “You got the rush because we’re going to stop it.”

“That’s right,” Virgil said. “I like your reconceptualization.”

“I’m really good at that,” Jenkins said. “Let me get some stuff out of Shrake’s trunk.”

What he got out of Shrake’s trunk were a bulletproof vest and two M16s with low-light Red-Dot scopes and ten thirty-round magazines. “I brought one for you, if you want it,” he said.

“Might be a little overgunned,” Virgil said.

Jenkins said, “I’ve never been overgunned. I have been under-gunned. After that happened, I reconceptualized.”

The third “not a Western” by John Sandford I’ve offered here. I justify as it is in the realm of rural cop/police procedural that works by Craig Johnson and C.J. Box often float under the radar with.

Box and Johnson are both fine writers, but it strikes me that Sandford is the brisker and sturdiest of them all. Add to that, a procedural verisimilitude no doubt furnished by Sandford’s years as a crime reporter, and you have rock-solid work.

This is another in the rural Minnesota, Virgil Flowers series. Speedy entertainment for those who don’t mind their Law Dogs of more recent vintage and remind themselves that many a fine Western is set in the wilds of Minnesota, so why not this modern incarnation?

I repeat, rock solid stuff.