Holy Ghost
John Sandford (Simon & Schuster $38) Ken Strongman
Stephen King describes John Sandford as ‘‘one of the great novelists of all time’’. Whether or not one agrees with this probably depends on their definition of ‘‘great’’. Sandford has written about 50 books of crime fiction and those that I have read, including Holy Ghost, are easy and enjoyable to read as well as being genuinely entertaining.
Holy Ghost is the latest in Sandford’s Virgil Flowers series. Flowers is an extremely likeable, quick-thinking agent of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension of the US state of Minnesota. A murder has been committed in the 700-strong town of Pinion and Virgil is called on to investigate. He finds a rundown town that has begun to look up since an image of the Virgin Mary has started to appear. The mayor, a likeable rogue with a very bright young sidekick, has generated a scheme to put Pinion on the map and thereby increase the income in his store.
Pinion is full of interesting characters, all backed by the certainty that their own view of the world is the only viable one. They might be the inhabitants of a small town but it would be a mistake to underestimate them. This is not a mistake that Virgil is likely to make. He is like the townsfolk but more so, and administers a fine mixture of maverick, homespun rough justice.
However, another murder occurs and then a third and fourth, all involving the interesting and sometimes long-range use of some of the many guns that abound in smalltown America. There is even a near death from the long-range use of a hunting bow. Matters become more desperate but somehow no one seems very worried, such deaths simply being part of life in the smalltown Midwest. People merely carry on with their lives and failing get-rich schemes. Of course, it might also be laid at the feet of the two avowed tattooed Nazis who live on the outskirts, although there are doubts about them being bright enough.
In the end, Holy Ghost is a fast, highly enjoyable read, soon over and probably soon forgotten. It is truly escapist reading and Virgil Flowers is an amusing and clever investigator in that ‘‘man alone’’ tradition that is so well grounded in American crime fiction. It is certainly good enough that I would be happy to read more in the series, having already read quite a few in John Sandford’s ‘‘Prey’’ series. (Hidden Prey; Mortal Prey; etc). His books are easy reading and good fun, but are unlikely to make him into a great novelist. But there again, both Stephen King and the US, as it is now, are given to hyperbole.