FREE: JOHN SANFORD HB Autograped Copy 1st ed

Flowers lives in Mankato, a kind of nifty college town in southern Minnesota. No matter since Davenport has Flowers skittering hither and thither all about the state, causing him to place head upon the pillow in lots of no-star motels. An attractive man to the ladies, he has been married three times and, occasionally, shares a bed with one of his more colorful ex-wives.
That is, in fact, where we find the sleep deprived Flowers when Davenport calls to set him on the road of solving another murder, the corpse being rasther ceremoniously dumped at a veterans memorial.
The murder victim is dead - and quickly connected with other recently murdered dead across the state. The lemon wedged into their mouths is a clue.
All the dead seem to be Vietnam war veterans. We are introduced to the killers early on but Flowers must find them on his on. Sanford, as always, gets off to a fast start and never slows down. Davenport recedes almost entirely into the background in "Heat Lightning", making only rare appearances as the boss. For the most part, Flowers is on his own.
As is often the case in a Sanford novel, the action flows across the State of Minnesota. Primary and secondary characters are crisply drawn and so very human, you want to sit down and have coffee with them. At least the nice guys among them. The villains are nice people to, sort of, always morally ambiguous in Sanford's way. Nice to those they like or favor in some way - and deadly to those they don't. Sometimes a person can go from favored to dead in an instant.
The plot is marvelous and has several untelegraphed, unexpected twists. "Heat Lightning" is that most delightful phenomena, as real page turner. It is fast reading, but expect it to keep you up late for a couple of nights.

Love his books.