Series gets a political twist

WICKED PREY. By John Sandford. Putnam. 402 pages. $27.95.

After a while, it gets old coming up with new superlatives for the "Prey" series. Somehow, John Sandford always manages to keep Minneapolis cop-turned-political appointee Lucas Davenport relevant. No story ever seems a retread, even when familiar bad guys show up.

Perhaps the most impressive thing is that Sandford never phones it in. These books are deceptively simple. They read so easy they must be facile. But that's just an illusion most writers cannot achieve.

The plot of "Wicked Prey" is a fresh, and political, twist for the Davenport series. A group of master thieves comes to Minneapolis to rip off political operatives in town for the Republican National Convention.

These are the people who dole out "walking around" money to get out the vote. Since this is technically illegal, it's tricky to report such a crime. This brutal band figures it can rob several of these movers and shakers before making an escape.

But the crimes soon turn violent, and Davenport falls into his old ways.

Anyone who tries to dismiss crime novels as genre literature could take lessons in character development from the 19 books in the "Prey" series.

The Twin Cities are so vividly alive they are practically characters themselves. And most novelists also could learn a bit about writing dialogue from Sandford, the pseudonym of former journalist John Camp.

It's hard to top the best books in the series, and this one doesn't, but it is a worthy addition.

What's most impressive, though, is the consistency Sandford maintains. Only John D. MacDonald and James Lee Burke have sustained this level of quality. And that's definitely a superlative compliment.