Judgment Prey (lucas Davenport, #33; Virgil Flowers, #15)

The 33rd novel in John Sandford's Prey series, this thriller follows deputy U.S. Marshal Lucas Davenport and his frequent partner, Virgil Flowers, a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) agent, as they investigate the murders of a federal judge and his two young sons in St. Paul.

On a rainy October evening, federal judge Alex Sand and his sons, 12-year-old Blaine and 10-year-old Arthur, return from shooting baskets and enter their house through the front door, leaving it unlatched. A hooded killer wearing a dark rain suit, a University of Minnesota hoodie, a Covid mask, glasses, and vinyl gloves follows them inside and shoots all three, finishing each with a close-range kill shot. Over six minutes, he takes Sand's wallet, watch, three laptops, and three iPhones but leaves baby Chelsea alive in her nursery. Sand's wife, Margaret Cooper, a professor of theater arts at the University of Minnesota, arrives home, discovers the bodies, and calls 9-1-1 from the lawn, holding the screaming baby.

Lucas, still recovering nine months after being shot three times on Long Island, is depressed and isolated. His wife, Weather Karkinnen, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, is called to an emergency. Left alone, Lucas gets a call from U.S. Marshal Edie Lamb, who asks him to visit the crime scene. St. Paul detective Jimmy Russo briefs him: Security cameras captured the killer, 9mm shell casings litter the floor, and the robbery appears staged, since the killer left a diamond ring untouched. Noah Heath, chairman of a charity called Heart/Twin Cities, arrives with the mayor. Though outwardly distraught, Heath cares only about whether Cooper will honor Sand's pledge of up to $150,000 to his housing project, Home Streets.

Three weeks later, with the case stalling, Virgil is assigned to review it. Sand was enormously wealthy, his family fortune estimated at $125 to $150 million, and Cooper inherits everything. Her security-camera timeline and visible devastation make investigators skeptical of her involvement. Lucas and Virgil interview Cooper at the Edina home of her friend Ann Melton, an attorney at Sand's former law firm. Cooper and Melton display suspiciously detailed knowledge of the case, using law enforcement terminology. Lucas asks whether Cooper and Melton have a sexual relationship; Cooper admits they do. After leaving, Virgil tells Lucas he suspects the women have unauthorized access to the case files.

Cooper and Melton do have a link to the BCA's computer system, obtained from an employee over a year earlier. Their real plan is darker: When police identify the killer, Cooper intends to murder him herself, with Melton as her defense attorney. Cooper has PTSD, tormented nightly by images from the night she discovered the bodies. She and Melton visit Henry James Carter, a recently released convict in Stillwater. Cooper pays him $30,000 in cash for a cold gun: an untraceable 9mm Glock 19 equipped with a suppressor.

Lucas and Virgil pursue multiple leads. They interview Cheryl Lundgren, the volatile girlfriend of a man Sand sentenced, but she has a verified alibi. On the drive back, Lucas senses Lundgren said something important, though he cannot identify what. They investigate Thomas Burston, Sand's financial advisor, who fits the killer's profile but appears genuinely grief-stricken and calls Heath and his associate Bob Dahl con men. BCA researcher Sandy Hayward uncovers that Heath's charities have all underperformed and that Dahl is actually Darrell Clark Hinton, a California con man using a dead acquaintance's identity.

Meanwhile, the killer, a gig worker at three gyms, fears Cooper could identify him if police learn his name. He tracks her to Melton's house and approaches one evening with a gun. A neighbor spots him. Cooper grabs the family's .357 revolver, charges outside, and fires all five rounds at the fleeing figure. She misses, and the killer fires back, hitting the house but not Cooper. Crime scene investigators find shell casings identical to those from the Sand house. Virgil raises a disturbing possibility: 13 shots were fired at close range and nobody hit anything, suggesting Cooper may have staged the attack.

Using a California warrant, Lucas and Virgil confront Hinton, who provides a recorded confession about Heath's charity scams. Hinton then goes to Heath's Summit Avenue mansion to extort money. Heath gives him over $28,000, then kicks him down the staircase and suffocates him with a plastic bag. Heath buries the body at a remote boat launch and drops Hinton's van at the airport while wearing a University of Minnesota hoodie and Covid mask, mimicking the Sand killer's appearance. The next day, Heath beats Doreen Pollard, the Home Streets receptionist, to death with a hammer, fearing she knows too much about the frauds. Lucas and Virgil arrive 20 minutes too late, finding her body.

Lucas finally identifies what he absorbed from Lundgren's rant: Her phrase "child-fucker" suggests the murders may have been motivated by child sexual abuse. Cooper's face betrays recognition when he raises this, but she refuses to name her suspect. She tells Melton she suspects Don Hess, a trainer at the Silver Star boxing gym who ran kids' classes. The women break into Hess's house while he is at the gym. Cooper finds tiny USB flash drives hidden in a fake orchid pot; Melton discovers the three stolen laptops in the attic. The drives contain child pornography, including locker-room footage of Hess among naked children. Cooper conceals the evidence in a cold air return register, scratches the screws to attract investigators, and tips over the orchid to signal Hess that someone has been inside. When Hess returns, he discovers the drives missing and resolves to come after Cooper.

A television appeal leads to the discovery of Hinton's body at the boat launch. A search of Heath's house turns up only a missing hammer and a recently cleaned gardening spade. Cooper joins the Heart/Twin Cities board and orchestrates Heath's removal, provoking him into attacking her at a meeting; a breaking water glass slashes her cheek. Weather performs surgery on the cuts.

At the Silver Star, a former teenage boxer confirms Hess made unwanted advances and hid a video camera in his gym bag. Lucas and Virgil set up a stakeout near Cooper's house. Hess approaches one night through dark, snowy streets. Cooper, watching with a night-vision scope, spots Lucas outside and runs out screaming with her revolver. Hess fires four shots from a bluff, one striking Cooper in the leg. Lucas returns fire and misses. Virgil intercepts Hess on the sidewalk along I-35, hitting him with a shotgun blast in the legs. Hess is arrested.

A search of Hess's house yields the laptops and flash drives, all carrying his fingerprints. Ballistic analysis matches his Glock to the Sand murder weapon. He is charged with three counts of first-degree murder and child pornography offenses. Cooper, hospitalized, screams at Lucas and Virgil for not killing Hess.

The case against Heath for the murders of Hinton and Pollard remains difficult to prosecute. He puts his house up for sale, apparently preparing to flee to Antigua. Over the following weeks, Cooper performs a calculated recovery, scripting a cheerful persona for those around her while remaining consumed by rage. One evening, she retrieves the suppressed Glock, drives to Heath's home with baby Chelsea, and shoots him when he opens the door. She looks at the Christmas lights twinkling up the avenue and says to the baby, "C'mon, baby. Let's go home" (387).