Escape Clause
Ratings12
Average rating3.4
Whenever you hear the sky rumble, that usually means a storm. In Virgil Flowers’ case, make that two.
The first storm comes from, of all places, the Minnesota zoo. Two large, and very rare, Amur tigers have vanished from their cage, and authorities are worried sick that they’ve been stolen for their body parts. Traditional Chinese medicine prizes those parts for home remedies, and people will do extreme things to get what they need. Some of them are a great deal more extreme than others—as Virgil is about to find out.
Then there’s the homefront. Virgil’s relationship with his girlfriend Frankie has been getting kind of serious, but when Frankie’s sister Sparkle moves in for the summer, the situation gets a lot more complicated. For one thing, her research into migrant workers is about to bring her up against some very violent people who emphatically do not want to be researched. For another…she thinks Virgil’s kind of cute.
“You mess around with Sparkle,” Frankie told Virgil, “you could get yourself stabbed.”
“She carries a knife?”
“No, but I do.”
Forget a storm—this one’s a tornado.
Series
Featured Series
14 primary books#9 in Virgil Flowers
Virgil Flowers is a 14-book series with 14 released primary works first released in 2007 with contributions by John Sandford.
Reviews
Popular Reviews
Reviews with the most likes.
Two rare tigers are siphoned off a zoo. The onus of recovering them is shouldered by Virgil Flowers. If the animals were stolen by Chinese medicine makers, as he suspects, he has very less time to do his job, because they may be murdered any moment due to logistical reasons.
This is far better than Storm Front, the last Virgil Flowers novel by Sandford that I read. The story is good, the humor is just ok and there is enough built up of tension and suspense to satisfy me. I loved the antagonist. He starts off as a petty criminal, ends up really horrible and the trajectory is well etched. What I hated was that the protagonist was pathetic. He is so dim-witted that most of the clues are prompted to him by side kicks. Even on combat he is pretty much an embarrassment. If it's intentionally done that way (like the infinitely better and wittier Dortmunder novels), it is a bad move and doesn't generate any laughs.
I <3 Virgil and I <3 Jenkins and Shrake so it's always a fun time when they get together. It kind of did crack me up that the focus was on animals again, but it drove me nuts how close Virgil would get to the tigernappers and just miss them. There's so many other things going on at the same time too. I wanted to get a little closure with Sparkle's investigation and I did come out of this wanting a series with Catrin as the main character. hint, hint Sandford
