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John Sandford (novelist)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Rules of Prey)

John Sandford
Born
John Roswell Camp

(1944-02-23) February 23, 1944 (age 82)
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, U.S.
OccupationJournalist, novelist
EducationUniversity of Iowa (BA, MA)
GenreCrime fiction, thriller
Notable worksPrey series
Notable awardsPulitzer Prize for Feature Writing (1986)

John Roswell Camp (born February 23, 1944), known by the pen name John Sandford, is an American journalist and novelist. He won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for a series about a Minnesota farm family during the 1980s farm crisis.[1] As a novelist, he is best known for the long-running Prey crime series featuring Lucas Davenport and its related Virgil Flowers and Letty Davenport books. His other fiction includes the Kidd series, the Singular Menace young-adult trilogy with Michele Cook, and the science-fiction novel Saturn Run with Ctein.[2]

Early life and education

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Camp was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa in 1966 and a master's degree in journalism there in 1971. Between the two degrees, he served in the United States Army from 1966 to 1968, including service in Korea.[3]

Career

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Journalism

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Camp was a reporter at The Miami Herald from 1971 to 1978. He then joined the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, where he worked as a reporter and columnist until 1990.[4][3] In 1980, he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing for a series about Native Americans.[5]

During the farm crisis, Camp spent a year following a southwestern Minnesota family for the five-part Pioneer Press series "Life on the Land: An American Farm Family". The series won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing.[1] He also received a Distinguished Writing Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors.[3] While still a journalist, he wrote the nonfiction books The Eye and the Heart: The Watercolors of John Stuart Ingle (1988) and Plastic Surgery: The Kindest Cut (1989), the latter with surgeon Bruce Cunningham.[3]

Fiction

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Camp's first two published novels appeared in 1989: The Fool's Run, under his own name, and Rules of Prey, under the name John Sandford. Because the books were scheduled close together by different publishers, Putnam asked him to use a pseudonym for Rules of Prey; he chose the surname of his paternal great-grandfather.[6] Rules of Prey launched the Lucas Davenport series, and the earlier Kidd novels were later reissued under the Sandford name.[4][6]

The fourteenth Davenport novel, Naked Prey, became Sandford's first book to debut at number one on The New York Times bestseller list in 2003.[4] He introduced a related series about investigator Virgil Flowers in 2007 and another centered on Letty Davenport in 2022.[7]

Sandford's crime novels are closely associated with Minnesota and the Twin Cities. A 2009 Star Tribune profile described his work as concerned with the tension between disorder and the people trying to contain it, and noted his efforts to vary the subjects and tone of successive thrillers.[8] Writing in Publishers Weekly for the thirtieth anniversary of Rules of Prey, Sandford's longtime editor Neil Nyren attributed the series' longevity to changes in Davenport's personal and professional life and to shifts in setting, tone, and narrative structure.[9]

Sandford has said that his newspaper reporting and prison interviews informed his portrayals of police officers and criminals.[10] NPR reported that his experience observing Twin Cities police influenced the dialogue and procedural detail of the novels, while his use of actual Minnesota locations helped ground the fiction.[11]

Reviewing Invisible Prey in 2007, David J. Montgomery of The Washington Post credited Sandford's observation and reportorial technique with helping to keep the long-running series fresh.[12] In a 2017 assessment, the newspaper's Patrick Anderson identified humor—particularly in the Virgil Flowers books—as a distinguishing feature of Sandford's crime fiction.[13]

Published works

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Sandford's novels are organized mainly into the Prey, Kidd, Virgil Flowers, and Letty Davenport series. The bibliography below follows the author's and publisher's listings.[7][2]

Prey series

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The series follows Minnesota law-enforcement officer Lucas Davenport; later installments pair him with Virgil Flowers or Letty Davenport. Over the course of the series, Davenport's work expands from Minneapolis policing to state and federal investigations.[9] Mind Prey was adapted as a 1999 ABC television film starring Eriq La Salle, and Certain Prey became a 2011 USA Network film starring Mark Harmon.[4][14]

  1. Rules of Prey (1989)
  2. Shadow Prey (1990)
  3. Eyes of Prey (1991)
  4. Silent Prey (1992)
  5. Winter Prey (1993)
  6. Night Prey (1994)
  7. Mind Prey (1995)
  8. Sudden Prey (1996)
  9. Secret Prey (1998)
  10. Certain Prey (1999)
  11. Easy Prey (2000)
  12. Chosen Prey (2001)
  13. Mortal Prey (2002)
  14. Naked Prey (2003)
  15. Hidden Prey (2004)
  16. Broken Prey (2005)
  17. Invisible Prey (2007)
  18. Phantom Prey (2008)
  19. Wicked Prey (2009)
  20. Storm Prey (2010)[15]
  21. Buried Prey (2011)
  22. Stolen Prey (2012)
  23. Silken Prey (2013)
  24. Field of Prey (2014)
  25. Gathering Prey (2015)
  26. Extreme Prey (2016)
  27. Golden Prey (2017)
  28. Twisted Prey (2018)
  29. Neon Prey (2019)
  30. Masked Prey (2020)
  31. Ocean Prey (2021)
  32. Righteous Prey (2022)
  33. Judgment Prey (2023)
  34. Toxic Prey (2024)
  35. Lethal Prey (2025)
  36. Revenge Prey (2026)[16]

From Ocean Prey (#31) on, the lead in the Prey books has been shared: Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers in Ocean Prey, Righteous Prey, Judgment Prey, and Lethal Prey; Lucas Davenport and Letty Davenport in Toxic Prey.

Kidd series

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  1. The Fool's Run (1989), by John Camp; reissued 1996 as by Sandford
  2. The Empress File (1991), by John Camp; reissued 1995 as by Sandford
  3. The Devil's Code (2000)
  4. The Hanged Man's Song (2003)

Virgil Flowers series

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This spin-off series centers on Virgil Flowers, an investigator who first appeared as a supporting character in the Prey novels.[2][7]

  1. Dark of the Moon (2007)
  2. Heat Lightning (2008)
  3. Rough Country (2009)
  4. Bad Blood (2010)
  5. Shock Wave (2011)
  6. Mad River (2012)
  7. Storm Front (2013)
  8. Deadline (2014)
  9. Escape Clause (2016)
  10. Deep Freeze (2017)
  11. Holy Ghost (2018)
  12. Bloody Genius (2019)

Virgil Flowers also has a prominent role in Ocean Prey (Prey series #31), Righteous Prey (Prey series #32), Judgment Prey (Prey series #33), and Lethal Prey (Prey series #35).

Singular Menace series (with Michele Cook)

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  1. Uncaged (2014)
  2. Outrage (2015)
  3. Rampage (2016)

Letty Davenport series

[edit]

This spin-off series centers on Letty Davenport.[2][7]

  1. The Investigator (2022)
  2. Dark Angel (2023)

Other fiction books

[edit]
  • The Night Crew (1997)
  • Dead Watch (2006)
  • Saturn Run (with Ctein; 2015)[17]

Short stories

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  • "Lucy Had a List." Published in Murder in the Rough: Original Tales of Bad Shots, Terrible Lies, and Other Deadly Handicaps from Today's Great Writers (2006), a short story anthology by notable authors, the fourth title in the sports mystery series edited by Otto Penzler.
  • "Rhymes with Prey," co-written with Jeffery Deaver. Published in FaceOff (2014), a short-story anthology edited by David Baldacci, pitting famous thriller authors against each other.
  • "Deserves to be Dead," co-written with Lisa Jackson. Published in MatchUp (2017), a short-story anthology edited by Lee Child, pairing male and female thriller writers.

Nonfiction books

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  • The Eye and the Heart (1988)
  • Plastic Surgery (1989)

Awards and honors

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References

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  1. 1 2 3 "1986 Pulitzer Prizes". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "John Sandford". Penguin Random House. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Camp, John (Roswell) 1944–". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "A career and name change later, Sandford scores with 14th Prey thriller". The Daily Record. July 16, 2003. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  5. 1 2 "1980 Pulitzer Prizes". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  6. 1 2 "About the Author". John Sandford official website. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "List of Books". John Sandford official website. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  8. ↑ Tillotson, Kristin. "John Sandford: Master of chaos". Star Tribune. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  9. 1 2 Nyren, Neil (July 26, 2019). "Three Decades of John Sandford". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  10. ↑ Dunn, Adam (April 14, 2003). "Writing Prey". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  11. ↑ Neary, Lynn (August 17, 2012). "Hunting 'Prey' On The Streets Of St. Paul, Minn". NPR. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  12. ↑ Montgomery, David J. (May 10, 2007). "The Trail Never Goes Cold". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  13. ↑ Anderson, Patrick (October 13, 2017). "John Sandford: A thriller writer having a little fun with the genre". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  14. ↑ Eng, Joyce (March 3, 2011). "Mark Harmon Headlining USA TV Movie Certain Prey". TV Guide. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  15. ↑ "Book review of John Sandford's "Storm Prey"". Washingtonpost.com. July 12, 2010. Retrieved November 18, 2013.
  16. ↑ "Revenge Prey by John Sandford". Penguin Random House. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  17. ↑ "Saturn Run by John Sandford and Ctein". Penguin Random House. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  18. ↑ "Sandford, The Chalk Man 2019 ThrillerFest Honorees". Penguin Random House. July 16, 2019. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
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