Finished: John Sandford's 'Ocean Prey'

 John Sandford's latest features Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers, which is always a good combination.

The 31st book in the series is unique in that it is the first one I can recall which is not Minnesota-centric. It takes place in Florida where Lucas is called in, now with the U.S. Marshals, to investigate the murder of three Coast Guard members. He recruits Virgil to serve as a deep sea diver, a talent I was unfamiliar with for Virgil.

An off-duty Coast Guardsman is fishing with his family when he calls in some suspicious behavior from a nearby boat. It's a snazzy craft, slick and outfitted with extra horsepower, and is zipping along until it slows to pick up a surfaced diver . . . a diver who was apparently alone, without his own boat, in the middle of the ocean. None of it makes sense unless there's something hinky going on, and his hunch is proved right when all three Guardsmen who come out to investigate are shot and killed. They're federal officers killed on the job, which means the case is the FBI's turf. When the FBI's investigation stalls out, they call in Lucas Davenport. And when his case turns lethal, Davenport will need to bring in every asset he can claim, including a detective with a fundamentally criminal mind: Virgil Flowers.

I cruised through the book (over 400 pages) in about three nights. It rated an 8 on the 10-point Haugenometer. Others seemed to agree as Goodreaders gave it a stellar 4.6 of 5.

** Previous to that I did what I said I wasn't going to do and read another Tim Dorsey book - No Sunscreen for the Dead.

It's the 22nd in the Serge Storm series.

The books focus on psychotic Serge and his stoner buddy Coleman traveling around Florida causing trouble. This time at senior living communities.

Serge and Coleman are back on the road, ready to hit the next stop on their list of obscure and wacky points of interest in the Sunshine State. This time, Serge’s interest is drawn to one of the largest retirement villages in the world—also known as the site of an infamous sex scandal between a retiree and her younger beau that rocked the community.

What starts out as an innocent quest to observe elders in their natural habitats, sample the local cuisine, and scope out a condo to live out the rest of their golden years, soon becomes a Robin Hood-like crusade to recover the funds of swindled residents. After all, our seniors should be revered and respected—they’ve heroically fought in wars, garnered priceless wisdom, and they have the best first-hand accounts of bizarre Floridian occurrences only Serge would know about. But as the resident’s rally for Serge to seek justice on their behalves, two detectives are hot on the heels of Serge and Coleman’s murderous trail.

In this epic adventure that jumps between present day and the tumultuous times of the Vietnam war, mystery fans are in for a witty and deliciously violent delight from the twisted imagination of bestselling author Tim Dorsey.

The books are so formulatic and inane, but they are funny and you don't need to use your brain. Those kind of books have a place when your mind is in that place and mine was.

It did the job - entertained - and was one of the better ones recently in the series. I gave it a 6 of 10. Unbelievably, to me, Amazonians gave it a 4.7 out of 5, which probably says as much about our society today as anything. Maybe people are just looking for an escape ... or doing a lot of drugs.