Shock Wave by John Sandford

 

When Willard Pye decided that a Minnesota river town would be a great location for his next megastore, not everyone was happy about it.  Small business owners in the town worried that the new store would undercut their prices and put them out of business.  The environmentalists and fisherman worried that runoff from the huge parking lots would ruin the rivers and the kill the fish.  At first the town council was leaning against approval but suddenly the vote went through and several members changed their vote and the store was on.

A common story but this one was about to take an unusual turn.  A bomb was sent to the Pye headquarters and only the tardiness of a meeting kept it from being a massacre although a secretary was killed.  That happened in Michigan but when a second bomb at the construction site in Minnesota killed a construction supervisor, Minnesota police got involved.  Virgil Flowers, a state investigator, was sent to capture the bomber before anyone else got killed.

Virgil started talking to everyone he found but he wasn't in time.  The bomber kept on setting off bombs and the death rate kept rising.  Can Virgil find the bomber?

This is the fifth Virgil Flowers novel.  Virgil is much more laidback than Sandford's other detective, Lucas Davenport, who is Flowers' boss.  He moseys around, talking to everyone and narrowing down his suspicions until he finds the killer.  This novel has lots of twists and turns and readers will enjoy following along.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.