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Book Review: Holy Ghost by John Sandford

by Esther

Happy Saturday my lovely peeps!
The final of my rereads, this book was one that I had read out of order, so we're going to take a big hop from book five, yesterday's post, to book 11!

Book Description

Title: Holy Ghost
Series: Virgil Flowers Book # 11
Author: John Sandford
Edition: Physical > Paperback
Length: 402 Pages
Genre/s: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Suspense, Crime, Police Procedural

Blurb (Goodreads)

Wheatfield, Minnesota - a metropolis of seven hundred souls. The word "moribund" might have been invented for Wheatfield. Nothing ever happened there and nothing ever would—until the mayor of sorts (campaign slogan: "I'll Do What I Can") and a buddy come up with a scheme to put the town on the map. They'd heard of a place where a floating image of the Virgin Mary had turned the whole town into a shrine, attracting thousands of pilgrims. And all those pilgrims needed food, shelter, all kinds of crazy things, right? They'll get rich! What could go wrong?

When the first dead body shows up, they find out. That's only the beginning of their troubles—and those of Virgil Flowers'—as they are about to discover all too soon.

Review

Holy Ghost is the eleventh book in the Virgil Flowers series and starts off with the mayor of Wheatfield, a small town in Minnesota with a population of roughly 650 residents, shooting flies as they come in through the door.

This, in a town whose population had fallen from 829 in 2000 to 721 in the last census, and now probably hovered around 650, leaving behind twenty or thirty empty houses and a bunch of empty apartments over the downtown stores. Half the stores were themselves shuttered, and some had been simply abandoned by their owners, eventually—and pointlessly—taken by the county due to lack of property tax payments.

There's not much hope left in a town that's clearly dying and everybody from its inhabitants to their mayor knows this. What they need is something big. Something to draw in the crowd; a miracle. And a miracle does happen, sightings and even cellphone recordings of the Virgin Mary at the local church! Suddenly, there's no end to the tourists who flock to the small town in hopes of seeing the apparition. It's great and even helps revive a near dead economy!

What they don't need is are shootings, specifically what could be a nut job on the loose, taking people down with a rifle, sniping from who knows where. It's time to call in the big guns and Virgil Flowers is that guy. Only an hour from his home base in Mankato, he says goodbye to his girlfriend, promising to be back in time for the ultrasound of their baby and he's off to this small town where the Virgin Mary is apparently showing up along with a shooter.

This was a pretty good book and one of my favorite from the series. In this book, Virgil struggles to piece together multiple things. The thing that especially plagues him is, nobody hears the gunshots. You'd think there's at least be one witness who heard something, anything, but nobody does! Jumping from place to place, he quickly finds more bodies and the deaths are starting to rack up with his clues not particularly leading to anywhere.

There are several pretty intense scenes including the injury of a fellow cop. There are multiple moments where Virgil is willing to put himself in danger if it means getting a glimpse of a clue. The ending and climax scene, as always, were superbly done and had me at the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen.

The actual ending of the book was really nice too, involving relationships and family. I've followed Virgil from his first book to where he his now and knowing how he is, it's really nice and kind of sweet to see how the book ended.

A really good book, decent thriller with a sense of urgency hanging over the protagonist's head. There are some good scenes, thrills and suspenses, and Shake and Jenkins, being the BCA's official "thugs", are back at it again to help aid Virgil in this job. I always appreciate these two golf loving meatheads because they bring a sense of comedic relief to what could have been an all intense book. I have to go back and read the 10th book now, as I read Holy Ghost out of order, and I certainly can't wait to do so and then jump right into Bloody Genius afterwards.