Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Unavailable
Gathering Prey
Unavailable
Gathering Prey
Unavailable
Gathering Prey
Audiobook10 hours

Gathering Prey

Written by John Sandford

Narrated by Richard Ferrone

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

A terrifying Lucas Davenport thriller from #1 New York Times-bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize-winner John Sandford.
 
They call them Travelers. They move from city to city, panhandling, committing no crimes-they just like to stay on the move. And now somebody is killing them.

Lucas Davenport's adopted daughter, Letty, is home from college when she gets a phone call from a woman Traveler she'd befriended in San Francisco. The woman thinks somebody's killing her friends, she's afraid she knows who it is, and now her male companion has gone missing. She's hiding out in North Dakota, and she doesn't know what to do.

Letty tells Lucas she's going to get her, and, though he suspects Letty's getting played, he volunteers to go with her. When he hears the woman's story, though, he begins to think there's something in it. Little does he know. In the days to come, he will embark upon an odyssey through a subculture unlike any he has ever seen, a trip that will not only put the two of them in danger-but just may change the course of his life.


From the Hardcover edition.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 28, 2015
ISBN9780698402096
Unavailable
Gathering Prey
Author

John Sandford

John Sandford is the pseudonym for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp. He is the author of thirty-three Prey novels, two Letty Davenport novels, four Kidd novels, twelve Virgil Flowers novels, three YA novels co-authored with his wife, Michele Cook, and five stand-alone books.

Related to Gathering Prey

Related audiobooks

Suspense For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for Gathering Prey

Rating: 4.138195175879397 out of 5 stars
4/5

199 ratings23 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fun but predictable.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A fast paced thriller filled with action, surprises and suspense. I found it hard to put down.. Lucas Davenport has his hands full tracking a killer calling himself Pilate and his followers across the upper Midwest..
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Gathering Prey is definitely one of Sandford's better attempts in the recent years. The interactions between the different branches of law enforcement were interesting as was the background in Upper Michigan. One huge plot hole was that despite the murders being done in more than one state, the FBI never got involved. That aside, and while, in a way, the story was a giant chase event (which I normally don't care for), it remains an engrossing suspense read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Lucas Davenport is on the trail of a group of Charles Manson style sociopaths that are leaving a trail of bodies from California to Michigan's upper peninsula. His daughter Letty, home from Stanford for the summer, plays a more prominent role than in most of the previous books in this series. The book gets off to a somewhat slow, flat start. Actually, the first quarter of the book was slightly boring. Letty is featured prominently during this part and Sanford does not do her justice. In Wicked Prey, Stolen Prey, and earlier novels she has been been a clever, skilled, interesting tactician. Here her IQ seems to have diminished significantly and her behavior is not very interesting. Once Sandford completes the set-up and Davenport begins to deal with Pilate's gang, however, the emphasis is more characteristic of an action thriller than a detective novel and the book moves closer to "can't put it down" territory. At the end Lucas Davenport makes a decision that functions as a cliff-hanger. I will await Sanford's next book in this serious impatiently.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Lucas solves another mystery of killings with his daughter, then hangs up his work with BCI.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I like his books and he writes one of my favorite detectives. Now that PD James is dead, who knows what happened to Reacher, and all the other detectives are getting old, I am in search of a new person to follow. I hope this is not the last of the Prey books. Maybe Lettie could take over.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good entry in an excellent series. Significantly involves Letty, hid daughter as he pursues a vicious Manson-like cult of killers and drug dealers. Penetrating the Travelers cum Juggalo cultures as they Gather in very remote places turns into a chase and a string of killings across the top of the US and through the Midwest. Fast paced, relentless and challenging, Lucas finally runs them down in the U P of Michigan.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I have read my last Sanford novel. And I've read quite a bunch. He is getting much worse in his Triple X language, subject matter, gore and guts. He is obviously pandering to a society of people who thrive on this type of literature. His formula is getting worn out, as well. And I'm sick of tired of that worthless adoptive daughter of his, Lettie. I was almost pulling for Pilate to get her!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    "...ride along with this. You don't have to be bleeding to be hurt."These words are spoken by Lucas Davenport of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.Travelers are a group who move from city to city, panhandling, not engaging in criminal activity, just staying on the move.Syke and Henry are travelers who make contact with Lettie, a student at Stanford and Lucas Davenport's adopted daughter. Lettie befriends the couple and buys them a meal, then gives them her cell phone number when they tell her they will be in near her hometown in the future.Later, Syke and Henry travel to a Juggalo Gathering. This is where groups of young people gather, paint their faces, smoke dope and dance. Before going, they tell Lettie that there is one dangerous person who attends these gatherings, his name is Pilate and he enjoys inflicting pain..Pilate is a Charles Manson type character. He is crazy and enjoys hurting and tormenting others. He thinks that runaways, homeless people or travelers make good subjects of his violence since no one would miss them. He has a group of followers, the women prostitute themselves and turn over their paychecks to him and the men do his bidding, stealing and selling dope.There is quite a similarity between Pilate and Charles Manson. One of Pilate's early victims was a blond, pretty entertainer who Pilot mutilated and murdered. This event reminded me of Sharon Tate's murder by Manson. Pilate feels like a god who can do whatever he wants to a person without reprisal.I have read many crime novels and am happy to say that John Sanford has created a fresh plot with clean, dialogue that flows like a police training film. The secondary characters are also unique and create a desire in the reader - to learn what will happen with them.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A another winner in the Lucas Davenport suspense series, and an interesting decision for Lucas, the consequences of which readers will be anxious to follow.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A lot of information on Michigan and the UP. Very well done.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is the first PREY book that I have read in a long time. It is the story of a group of killers lead by a manipulative maniac. The story was good bu t the book could have been cut by 100 pages. Just got too long.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Story focusing on murder of travelers by a cult like figure, called Pilot. Father/daughter pair get involved to solve the murders. Aided by a possess of up militia, the cult is taken out in a tale loaded with violence. Story moves well, but too much violence to suit me.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    John Sandford is incapable of writing a bad book. Gathering Prey is pretty good- Lucas Davenport is the lead character once again, with his adopted daughter having a large presence and that 'f%%%ing Flowers' making an appearance as well. As usual, the dialogue sounds true and the police procedures (as well as Davenport's approach to taking shortcuts around them at times) seem realistic. The writing was as tight as always.

    I had two problems with this one, though. Unless you've been following the series closely, I don't think you'd necessarily have all the background on his daughter, Letty, that you needed to understand her actions. Sandford alludes to previous activities she'd been involved in but doesn't do a good enough job developing the history of the character for a casual reader. The other issue I had was with the ending- although the good guys win, there was a little too much carnage without a real examination of why all of it happened.

    This is a nice addition to the Prey series but not among its best.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is the first of this series I've read...I can't imagine reading 25 of them. While I liked his character and that of his daughter, the chase really bored me and I found myself skipping pages. Not sure I'd read another in the series.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was a well written book in this series. I didn't want this to end. I loved reading about Lucas Davenport and his daughter. This story was fantastic. It read very smoothly.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Love Davenport!!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Lucas does it again!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Fantastic!!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Well, shoot! Talk about a cliff hanger. I can't wait until the next Prey book to see what happens with Lucas. This was an excellent read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Once when I was disappointed with an earlier Prey novel, I wrote a review out in bullet points while trying to pin down each of the factors that had let me down.So in this case I’m going to take these same types of bullet points to help rate Gathering Prey. - Lucas Davenport is definitely front and centre in this one although his adopted daughter Letty initiates the connection to the case. 5/5- Letty’s connection is a major plot point and it is based on a relationship rather than a cutesy Letty the kid reporter subplot, which she is past now anyway. I’d now be totally ok with a Letty Davenport stand-alone book with her in some sort of investigative capacity. 5/5- The other standard characters in Lucas’s team (i.e. Virgil, Del, Shrake) make only small appearances mostly via other cases which is a downside, but the standard quips about fishing and golfing provide some much needed comic relief. Letty using any chance to get behind the wheel of Lucas’s Porsche is another good bit. 4/5- Quirky bit parts are played by various Juggalos, as parts of the plot take the kill cult to various music festivals. Sandford clearly tries to separate the benign actions of Juggalos and music festival crew members from the cult that is simply using them for cover. 4/5- Lucas’s main allies are a small town sheriff and the full and part-time deputies he assembles to help Lucas chase down the gang. Although they are jokingly introduced as if their local K-9 member was the smartest one of the crew, they actually turn out to be totally competent and good allies for Lucas. 5/5- The villains this time are a type of Charles Mansonish thrill-kill cult which makes them just about as despicable as can be without any sort of apparent motive except for mayhem. There isn’t really a huge amount of investigation involved as the cult is known from the beginning and Lucas is quickly brought in by Letty after some street people she meets have apparently been targeted by them. Because of the numbers involved (20 or so) they mostly blur together with only the cult-leader standing out. 2/5So overall, I’d put this at a 4/5, making it a good entry in the series with some quirky variety.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Usually we can find Lucas Davenport heading up a team of state detectives in Minneapolis. He's going through a period right now where he is bored with his case work, stonewalled in a couple of ongoing investigations and at loose ends. When his adopted daughter, Letty, contacts him with troubling news about a couple of Travelers she met while in college in San Francisco it perks up his interest. Travelers are similar to hobos, people who have no permanent residence but are willing to work at temporary jobs until they get enough money to “travel” to their next destination.

    Letty first hears about Porter Pilate from Skye and Henry. He claims to be the devil and likes to kill people in horrific ways. When Henry fails to show up one night, Skye becomes worried and then is told that he's been taken to a secluded spot, crucified, castrated and then hacked to death. Skye contacts Letty and she convinces Lucas to look into the situation. With some reluctance, he does. What he finds takes him on a wild chase through the Upper Midwest, totally out of his official jurisdiction, against the wishes of an exasperated boss.

    I can't believe this is the 25th book in the “Prey” series. It still remains fairly fresh due to the snappy dialogue and fully fleshed characters. John Sandford delivers again with a suspenseful and very entertaining story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Lucas Davenport always gets his man. and I am never disappointed. Lucas has grown and changed as time goes on and that is why I am truly a John Sandford fan. He never sticks with the same formula. I feel like I truly know Lucas

    1 person found this helpful