Righteous Prey (lucas Davenport #32, Virgil Flowers #14)

John Sandford's Righteous Prey follows U.S. Marshal Lucas Davenport and Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) agent Virgil Flowers as they hunt a group of Bitcoin billionaires who murder people they consider "assholes."

The novel opens in a San Francisco alley, where George Sonnewell, a Bitcoin billionaire and former farm boy, strangles a man named Duck Wiggins with a nylon rope and writes the numeral "1" on his forehead. Sonnewell calls Vivian Zhao, the group's organizer, on a burner phone to report the killing. The group calls itself "the Five": wealthy individuals who kill people they deem harmful to society, issuing press releases and donating anonymous Bitcoin to charities after each murder.

The second killing takes place in Houston. Andi Carter, a Bitcoin-wealthy woman from New Orleans whose father had prostituted her to bank executives as a teenager, slashes the throat of U.S. Representative Clayton "Jack" Daniels and writes "2" on his forehead. In Minnesota, Virgil Flowers follows the story through the media while finishing his third novel. Virgil has the best clearance rate in the BCA and lives on a farmhouse with his girlfriend Frankie, their infant twins, and Frankie's older son. Lucas, a U.S. Marshal based in St. Paul, lives with his wife Weather, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon.

The case arrives on their doorstep when Jamie McGruder, a Bitcoin billionaire obsessed with tactical training, murders Hillary Sikes at her Lake Minnetonka mansion. He stabs her in her garage, writes "3" on her forehead, and steals her Manolo Blahnik pumps as trophies, then burns his getaway car, a Subaru purchased through an accomplice, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Virgil's BCA boss Jon Duncan calls him to the crime scene, where Lucas has arrived at the request of U.S. Senator Porter Smalls, a political ally. FBI Agent in Charge David St. Vincent coordinates a joint investigation. Lucas and Virgil canvass the neighborhood and produce key leads: a resident reports a green Subaru cruising the street, and a wildlife-pond camera captures it on four consecutive nights. A melted plastic disk from the burned Subaru puzzles investigators until Virgil realizes it is a small golf ball marker from the Wayzata Country Club.

Cross-referencing the club's groundskeepers with the car buyer's description, they identify Dom Velez, who works part-time for McGruder. Separately, they discover a Givenchy down parka worth nearly three thousand dollars was stolen from a charity party. Cross-referencing that party's guest list with known Bitcoin investors produces McGruder's name, and satellite imagery reveals his mansion sits directly across the bay from the Sikes house.

The novel reveals the Five's formation through Zhao's backstory. A PhD dropout in economics, Zhao met Sonnewell at a Bitcoin convention, where he suggested killing "assholes." They recruited members through the American Bitcoin Council, a Bitcoin investors' organization, narrowing to five killers plus Zhao as organizer. Each uses an airport code as a pseudonym: SFO (Sonnewell), MSY (Carter), MSP (McGruder), CLE (Bill Osborne of Cleveland), and JFK (Marty Meyer of New York). Zhao proved her commitment by murdering a hedge fund operator in Los Angeles.

Despite warnings, McGruder's landscaper alerts him that federal agents are asking about Velez. McGruder drives to Worthington, Minnesota, and shoots Velez and a woman with a ghost gun, an untraceable homemade firearm. To build the case, Lucas orchestrates a media leak and enlists his friend Kidd, a computer genius, to hack McGruder's security system. Lucas then burglarizes McGruder's mansion and discovers the stolen parka in a hidden safe room. Before retreating from an unexpected intruder, he hangs the parka on a dressing room mirror.

The intruder is Nicole Walker, McGruder's ex-girlfriend, who is burglarizing his wardrobe. When arrested, Walker describes seeing the parka on the mirror, providing independent testimony that allows St. Vincent to obtain a search warrant. A midnight SWAT raid finds McGruder hiding in his safe room. Crime scene technicians later recover steel heel supports from Sikes' burned pumps in fireplace ashes. McGruder posts fifteen million dollars bail.

From home, McGruder contacts Zhao, asking her to plant evidence to undermine the case. Zhao demands a face-to-face meeting to record a video confession as insurance. She skis across the frozen lake to his house, records the confession, and when McGruder turns away, shoots him multiple times in the head with a .22 pistol. His attorney, Marvin Fingerhut, delivers a posthumous letter naming Zhao as the organizer and placing her near San Diego.

Lucas and Virgil track Zhao to San Diego, learning she disappeared from her apartment months earlier. At a tattoo parlor in La Jolla, Zhao spots them, steals a car, and flees. An anonymous caller then identifies Bill Osborne of Cleveland as another Five member. Before Lucas and Virgil arrive in Cleveland, Osborne murders Roland Klink, a ghost gun manufacturer.

Zhao flees to Sonnewell in Palo Alto, who gives her cash, a vehicle, and a 9mm pistol before sending her away. Osborne contacts Carter and Sonnewell, arguing Zhao must be eliminated since she knows all their identities. They agree. When Zhao arrives at Lakewood Park in Cleveland, she spots Osborne hiding in bushes and shoots him first. Lucas and Virgil, on surveillance nearby, hear the shots and recognize the rapid multi-shot pattern from Zhao's earlier executions.

A search of Osborne's house reveals a scratch pad listing airport codes matched to victim initials, including the next target: WOR. Agents initially interpret WOR as a New York talk radio station, but Lucas realizes it stands for Woodrow Orion Rap, a famous right-wing cable television host, since the Five's press release had promised the next victim would have a recognizable face. Meanwhile, Carter and Sonnewell, now romantically involved, lure Zhao to a Macy's store in Birmingham, Alabama, where Sonnewell kills her with a crowbar and Carter cuts her throat.

In New York, Lucas and Virgil work with FBI Agent Kate Orish to protect Rap at his Hamptons estate in Sagaponack. Marty Meyer, a real estate dealer whose family narrowly escaped the Holocaust, has stalked Rap for months. Meyer attaches a bump stock to his AR-15, a device giving him effectively automatic fire, and positions himself in a maple tree on a neighboring property, 108 yards from Rap's bathroom window.

At midnight, Meyer fires a single shot through the window, killing Rap instantly. Lucas sees the muzzle flash, and both he and Virgil converge on the shooter. Meyer opens fire with automatic bursts. Two FBI agents are killed when rounds penetrate their body armor. Lucas is hit in the arm, and Virgil is hit in the thigh and grazed in the head. Despite his wounds, Virgil pursues Meyer through dark suburban yards, reloads his shotgun, closes to ten feet, and kills him.

Lucas requires surgery for three gunshot wounds, including a broken arm repaired with a titanium plate. Virgil's thigh wound is a clean through-and-through. Two FBI agents are dead. Orish predicts she will be scapegoated for the operation's failures. During four months of recovery, Virgil completes his third novel.

In a final Zoom call, FBI Deputy Director Louis Mallard tells Lucas and Virgil they have found no trace of the remaining killers. The novel closes in New Orleans, where Carter picks up Sonnewell at the airport. He has identified a new target: a corporate raider who destroyed a small town by eliminating twenty-five hundred jobs. Carter says, "Yeah, that's the one," as her hand slides toward Sonnewell, echoing the final line of Casablanca about the beginning of a beautiful friendship. The two surviving killers, now a couple, plan their next murder with no sign that anyone will stop them.