BAD BLOOD

John Sandford has written many chilling mysteries, and BAD BLOOD is among his scariest. What starts out as a cut-and-dried murder investigation with detective Virgil Flowers soon devolves into a complicated case involving a religious cult that has incorporated child sex into its Sunday service. Narrator Eric Conger is no stranger to crime novels, and he does his usual splendid job keeping the complex story line manageable with clear character definition. His laid-back style is perfectly suited to bringing out the contrast between the clean-cut Flowers and the rough-edged characters in the story. Conger makes Flowers’s passion clear—the detective needs to solve the case and save the children. M.S. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2010]