Rules of Prey by John Sanford

Gut Instinct Rating - 3

Characters - 3.5

Believability for type and topics - 4

Similarity to other books - 4

Writing Style - 3

Excitement Factor - 2

Story Line - 4

Title Relevance - 5

Cover art - 4

To read or not to read? It depends on if you are looking for a light crime novel to read. If crime isn't your thing, this won't convert you.

Movie? None

Goodreads users gave this book a 4.13. I think it was more deserving of a 3.61.

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Published in July 1989

Pages: 362

Publishing Company: Berkley Books

Number of books by author: 79 Novels (27 Books in the Davenport Series)

Genre: Mystery, Fiction, Crime

This book was just really overwhelming. It was kind of like your standard episode of Criminal Minds or L&O: SVU. It wasn't bad, it wasn't gripping, it just was. Now, crime isn't my primary genre. In 2016, 23% of my reads were crime-related; this year, 19% of my books have been crime-related; so I feel like I have a pretty general acceptance to crime novels, and I have a good idea of what makes a crime novel good. And this book just fell short of that. Maybe because it was written in the late 80s, there was some fear about putting some of the nasty details in writing? I don't read a lot of books before the late 90s, so I'm not sure what the standard was then. This was also the first book in a series, so maybe, just maybe there was some uncertainty about how to go about things.

Simply, there just wasn't enough "mmph" packed into each page. The characters were mostly cops and (discussed about) victims, with a rotating view to the maddog killer. But, I would've liked to have more of Jennifer and Lucas, and definitely more from the victims. Imagine watching a crime movie where you know the victims; but you don't know how they feel, who they really are. It's just kind of a hunt and attack kind of feeling and there's nothing given back to the reader.

The time table was a bit unclear, and I thought it was odd that there wasn't more influence from the BAU (was that a thing in the 90s? My Criminal Minds knowledge is slacking at the moment.) but just snickers about who the killer might be; an inconsistent profile. I also felt it was a bit strange that Davenport was able to speak so freely to the media. Hell, we just had a spree-shooting here and they were freaking hush-hush-hush. Not a word about anything. The story line had a unique twist, and maybe that gets investigated further in the second book, but something tells me it doesn't, which is unfortunate because it could've made for an even larger ending.

Overall, the book was just boring and monotone throughout. Probably my last Stanford novel.