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Dark of the moon
First published 2007 · 486 pages
A sharp, wry procedural that peels back the polite veneer of a Midwestern town to reveal a tangled web of bloody secrets.
What it feels like
Reading this procedural feels like stepping into the biting chill of a Minnesota winter, where small-town charm quickly gives way to claustrophobic dread. The narrative moves at a brisk, confident clip, anchored by a protagonist whose laid-back, wry demeanor masks a razor-sharp investigative mind. The prose is unpretentious and dialogue-heavy, capturing the authentic rhythms of rural Midwestern life while maintaining a steady undercurrent of tension. As the layers of deceit are peeled back, the mood shifts from a curious puzzle to a high-stakes game of survival. It is a perfect fit for readers who love gritty, atmospheric mysteries where the setting is as treacherous as the killers, offering a satisfying blend of cynical humor and propulsive suspense.
- Mood
- chilly
- tense
- claustrophobic
- atmospheric
- Tone
- wry
- pragmatic
- suspenseful
- gritty
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- small-town secrets · rural isolation · weight of the past · justice versus law · hidden corruption
- The writing
- Sharp, unpretentious, and dialogue-heavy, with a keen ear for Midwestern vernacular.
- The arc
- Begins with detached investigative curiosity and escalates into a tense, high-stakes fight for survival.
- Who it's for
- Fans of hardboiled police procedurals who appreciate a laid-back but razor-sharp detective and intricate, rural mysteries.
Content notes
- graphic violence
- murder
- suicide
- sexual assault references
About the book
Virgil Flowers-tall, lean, late thirties, three times divorced, hair way too long for a cop's-had kicked around for a while before joining the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. First, it was the army and the military police, then the police in St. Paul, and finally Lucas Davenport had brought him into the BCA, promising him, "We'll only give you the hard stuff."He'd been doing the hard stuff for three years now-but never anything like this. In the small town of Bluestem, where everybody knows everybody, a house way up on a ridge explodes into flames, its owner, a man named Judd, trapped inside. There is a lot of reason to hate him, Flowers discovers. Years ago, Judd had perpetrated a scam that'd driven a lot of local farmers out of business, even to suicide. There are also rumors swirling around: of some very dicey activities with other men's wives; of involvement with some nutcase religious guy; of an out-of-wedlock daughter. In fact, Flowers concludes, you'd probably have to dig around to find a person who didn't despise him.And that wasn't even the reason Flowers had come to Bluestem. Three weeks before, there'd been another murder-two, in fact-a doctor and his wife, the doctor found propped up in his backyard, both eyes shot out. There hadn't been a murder in Bluestem in years-and now, suddenly, three? Flowers knows two things: This wasn't a coincidence, and this had to be personal.But just how personal is something even he doesn't realize, and may not find out until too late. Because the next victim...may be himself.Filled with the audacious plotting, rich characters, and brilliant suspense that have always made his books "compulsively readable" (Los Angeles Times), Dark of the Moon is vintage Sandford, further proof that he "is in a class of his own" (The Orlando Sentinel).
Description from Open Library.
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