Neon Prey is not up to the standard of previous Lucas Davenport novels I have read. It is tedious in places - certainly not a page turner nor particularly entertaining.

Lucas Davenport novels are always satisfying to me, and this one does not differ. There is an innovative use of a reptile, as a plot point; female characters figure importantly to the narrative; Las Vegas and the desert is the new locale. Lucas travels well. Sandford keeps the violence to the minimum necessary. Another winner!!!

Typical Lucas Davenport mystery - fast moving murder & mayhem with a high body count and an typical conclusion.

Lackluster plot combined with boring police-talk made this book a non-starter for me.

Just not good

As a long time fan of Sandford's wit and capacity to write dialog, I found this book a profound disappointment. For the first time, I skimmed the ending just to get it over. Boring and tedious plot twists and 'incompetent' law enforcement forces (except the all seeing Davenport) made it impossible to get engaged by the plot and it's characters.
The misogynistic base of the tale adds to the toxic masculine problem we are currently dealing with in our culture. Women are objects who are the recipients of stupidly violent abuse meted out by deranged, ugly men. This is nothing more than a pot boiler procedural. The formula is over used. A nod to normality is a few sentences from his wife at the end. Dreadful!

Bit of a disappointment, I'm afraid. Although the mystery/manhunt aspect is good, the dialogue is dull & seems like we've read it before. There's nothing new here, just a darker plot with vicious bad guys & little humour to alleviate a more violent than usual story line.

4-4 1/2 star read. The 29th book in Sandford's Prey series was a great read. Clayton Deese is what seems to be a small time criminal in Louisiana, until he skips his bail and the US Marshals are looking for him. And when they follow a trail behind his cabin, they find what looks like a lot of graves. Turns out that Deese is a serial killer and a cannibal so everyone is looking for him. Lucas, Bob and Rae track him to Las Vegas, where they lose him and his gang and they play a tight game of cat and mouse trying to figure out where he and his gang might be. Tracking him down to a Las Vegas mall, they almost have him but there is a shoot out and bystanders are shot. Will they ever catch this guy? And how many more people will be killed or injured before they do? This was a fast paced read and well up to Sandford's standards and I found it a really good read.

John Sanford and Lucas davenport never let me down. The books are fun and exciting, and 'Neon Prey' continues that winning formula. I like that Lucas evolves in his career as he matures, but also that he doesn't lose his edge or his sarcasm.

'Neon Prey' is full of mayhem trying to catch a cannibal killer and the killer trying to kill him, with some high stakes robbery thrown in. My one negative is that the book kept going back and forth calling characters by their first names or their last names. It made for confused reading at times.

And yes, that %@%$^& Virgil made a quick appearance.

4.5 stars

This is an entertaining read for Lucas Davenport fans. The plot mostly fits in the Sandford model, the body count is up there, and the bad guys mostly get the big hurt in the end.