The exceptional new thriller from the writer whose books are “pure reading pleasure” (Booklist)The first storm comes from, of all places, the Minnesota zoo. Sam Coale ( teaches American literature at Wheaton College.Whenever you hear the sky rumble, that usually means a storm. Its smooth, evenhanded prose misses nothing, and step by step we get closer to the hidden tigers, eager to seek their own revenge. Once you get started, you won’t be able to put this latest-in-the-series mystery down. Peck gets hooked on Xanax and sinks deeper and deeper into mental confusion with its lethal consequences. Hamlet and Hayk Simonian, two tiger-involved brothers, vanish, and a whole cabal of Simonians shows up, seeking revenge. The two plots operate separately until Sandford cleverly unites them in a surprise collision. Thugs attack Flowers’ girlfriend, thinking she’s her sister who’s exposing the canning factory that’s using migrants as virtual slaves. There are sudden murders, and the tigers in their cages, hidden out in a barn, are always hungry. This gives away none of the plot, since Sandford shows us the criminals’ circumstances and machinations while Flowers tries to track them down.

Flowers meticulously re-creates the nearly impossible robbery from tire tracks and fingerprints, while Winston Peck VI, a doctor discredited for fondling his female patients, oversees the tiger kidnapping, working with Zhang Xiaomin, the son of a criminal distributor from China. This time two Amur tigers, Artur and Katya, are stolen from the Minnesota Zoo to be killed and distilled into various parts for ancient Chinese medicinal cures. Both cops operate in and around the vast plains of corn and beans in the Minnesota-Wisconsin area, where bad guys can hide out and the landscape becomes its own mysterious labyrinth.

We first see him skinny-dipping with his girlfriend, her sister, and an assistant priest. The other’s surfer-looking dude Virgil Flowers, more laid back and a kind of populist policeman. One of his heroes is Lucas Davenport, a rich, urbane Minnesota detective/cop. John Sandford is another one of those mystery writers who, after reading one of his books, I read every book I can get my hands on. 'Escape Clause: A Virgil Flowers Novel,' by John Sandford.

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