F.A.Q. (2024)

I've received a lot of questions over the years, and many ofthem are common enough that I've compiled this list. It has the most commonquestions I get. Except for the first one — the order of the books isfar and away the most common question I am asked — they're in no particularorder.

What is the order of the books?

The Prey books do take place inchronological order, although people seem to read them out of order. Similarly,the Kidd novels take place in a particular order, and people oftenstart with the second novel because the paperback erroneously claimsthat it's first. The full list, by series, is:

The Prey series:

The Virgil Flower series:

The Letty Davenport series:

The Kidd series:

The Singular Menace:

Non-Series Books:

I heard that John Sandford died recently. Is this true?

No. The rumor (probably) started when Lawrence Sanders died in1997. Sanders wrote in a the same subset of thriller fiction as John Sandford,and the names were close enough that it caused some confusion.

Later, in 2005, Christian minister and author John A. Sanford died, and therumors started again.

As of this writing (July, 2020), John Sandford is 76 years old and in goodhealth.

What were the latest books to be released?

The most recent hardcover was TheInvestigator, the first novel in the new Letty Davenport series. Itwas be released on April 12th, 2022.

The most recent Prey novel was Ocean Prey, on April 13th of 2021. The most recent VirgilFlowers novel was Bloody Genius, on October 1st,2019.

The most recent paperbacks to come out were Ocean Prey on March 29th, 2022 (for the Preyseries) and Bloody Genius on August 25th,2020.

What's coming out next?

The next hardcover novel will be Dark Angel, the second Letty Davenport novel. Itwill be released on April 11, 2023.

The paperback for a given novel will typically be released a year after thehardcover edition. Sometimes it's earlier, sometimes later, but it's timed tocome out when the hardcover of the next book in the series isreleased.

Will there be any more Prey novels?

Yes. The thirty-third book in the series, which does not havea name at yet, will be released in late 2023.

Will there be any more Virgil Flowers novels?

Perhaps. The thirty-third Prey novel, which theauthor is working on right now, features Lucas and Virgil working together.But right now the author does not have a solo Virgil book in thepipeline.

Will there be any more Kidd novels?

It's unlikely at this point. We've had ideas for a potential fifth book,but the truth is the Kidd series simply doesn't sell well enough tojustify a new Kidd novel versus another Lucas or Virgil novel. If thereever is another novel in the series, it's going to have to becompletely different from the previous ones.

Will there be any more Night Crew novels?

Probably not.

The author thought for a while that he'd write a second Anna-and-companybook at some point in "the future", but has since decided that Anna is basicallya female Lucas, minus the badge. And having two characters that similar, by thesame author, is just redundant.

Further, Los Angeles really isn't his area. He knows the Twin Cities andthe surrounding countryside, but he just doesn't have the same rapport with thewest coast. And one of his favorite authors, Robert Crais (who is, in turn, oneof my dad's fans) does have that rapport with L.A. So my dad's leavingthe west-coast stuff to him, although there's no formal agreement (and a formalagreement would be kinda weird anyway).

Are any of the books going to be made into movies?

Two already have been, sort of.

In 1998, Jaffe/Braunstein Films, Ltd. made a TV-movie of Mind Prey, starring Eriq LaSalle (Doctor Benton onE.R.) as Lucas Davenport. It got mediocre ratings, and fared poorlywith fans.

In November of 2011, the USA TV network aired a TV movie of Certain Prey, starring Mark Harmon (of NCISfame) as Lucas Davenport. The ratings were extremely strong, giving the USAnetwork its highest numbers for the year, and ranking as the number-twofirst-run cable movie of the year. Reviews were decidedly mixed with fans andnon-fans alike polarized.

The USA network has not announced plans for any more movies,and at this point it seems unlikely that they will.

Has he considered doing a crossover with [name ofauthor]?

Not in novels. Writing is (usually) a solitary art. While authorsoccasionally collaborate with other authors, that remains the exception ratherthan the rule. Sometimes authors may mention Lucas or Lucas-like characters intheir novels, and John Sandford frequently includes references to other authorsand their characters, but there will not be any direct crossovers.

He has, however, collaborated with other authors for some shortstories. In 2014, he and Jeffery Deaver wrote "Rhymes with Prey", crossing overLucas Davenport with Lincoln Rhymes. It appeared in the International ThrillerWriters short story compilation FaceOff. Then, in 2017, he and LisaJackson crossed over Virgil Flowers and Regan Pescoli in "Deserves to be Dead"for the ITW short story compilation, MatchUp.

He has also written the young-adult sci-fi series The Singular Menace with his wife, Michele Cook, andthe stand-alone science fiction novel Saturn Runwith photographer and physicist Ctein. None of those books arecrossovers.

Is he going to kill off Lucas someday?

The standard answer he gives for this is, "No, because myeditor has told me that it would kill sales of the backstock."

This doesn't mean that the Prey series is going to go forever. Hesays that he plans to transform the Prey series somehow in two or threeyears, but he's been saying that for the past fifteen years. You'll just have towait and see.

Why does he use a pseudonym?

Because the publication dates of TheFool's Run and Rules of Prey were too closetogether (Rules of Prey was slated for July of 1989,and The Fool's Run was going to come out the followingSeptember). Now, it's considered poor form to have two debut novels released inthe space of that short a time, or even to have two debut novelsperiod. Since The Fool's Run had already beensold under the name John Camp, a pseudonym had to be used for the other book(because Putnam didn't want Henry Holt riding on the publicity for Rules of Prey).

Where did "Sandford" come from?

Sandford is his paternal grandmother's maiden name. Sometimeshe'll say that he's named after his great-grandfather Sandford. While that'strue, it still leaves four possibilities. I'm just narrowing it down to one byphrasing it the way I do.

Has he written any children's books?

No, he hasn't written any children's books, nor has heillustrated any. There is, however, a writer/illustrator named JohnSandford who writes primarily children's books. He is not in any way related tothis author.

Has he written any Christian philosophy / inspiration books?

No, but there are two writers with similar names who write onthat topic and the names get confused with the Prey seriesauthor.

One is John Loren Sandford, founder of Elijah House. He (along with hiswife) has written more than two dozen books on Christian philosophy andspirituality. The Elijah House website is at http://www.elijahhouse.org/. He has notwritten any crime thrillers.

The other is John A. Sanford, Jungian psychoanalyst and Episcopal priest(according to thisarticle on WikiPedia. He died in 2005.

Why is the website a .org instead of a .com?

Because johnsandford.com was already taken when Itried to get the domain. It had been registered by domain squatters — nosurprise there — but these people were playing the "noble" card. See, theyclaimed that their company existed solely to register celebrity names and holdthem until the "rightful" celebrity shows up to take it away, at which pointthey'd give it away for free. This would prevent the name being used for p*rnsites. As I said, noble.

Alas, it turned out that what they were really doing was usingtheir ownership of the site to leverage themselves into a different job: that ofrunning the site for the celebrity in question. When I was adamantthat, no, I was the webmaster and I wanted the name, they offered to turn itover for free. Plus about $700 in shipping and handling.

I could have done it, sure. I could have paid $700 to domain squatters andgotten the name. I could also have taken them to court, since a court hadrecently ruled that for personal names, if you don't have a reasonable claim tothat name, you can't hold the domain name from someone who does have areasonable claim. But the easier path by far was to just get .org. Since Ialready had a .org (for something completely different) and since the Sandfordsite wasn't meant for profit, I went with that solution.

They eventually sold the domain name (or lost it, perhaps) and now it's aseries of meta-forwards to a generic geo-targeted advertising page. Sincethis website's comfortably been a .org for more than two decades, I'vegot no particular desire to try to get the .com.

And that's the endof that. Now you know.