Author(s): John Sandford

Fiction

"Shock Wave" is aptly named, as it involves a plot about a very busy bomber who has it in for "Pye-Mart", obviously a Walmart knockoff, that is in the early construction phase in Butternut Falls (MN), and expected to destroy the local merchants and pollute the river with runoff, etc., etc. While that's not exactly an original premise, the one or two bombings per day keep everyone hopping to an insane degree, with a similar increase in suspense to the reader. Not surprisingly, there appears to have been illegal payoffs to local politicos to make the approval for the new megastore a reality; and while he's trying to discover the identity of the bomber, Virgil uncovers those crimes as well, nicely cleaning up the local scene. Meanwhile, Virgil seems to be telephonically breaking up with his new sheriff sweetheart, which slows down his tendency to womanize key characters, but that only added to the "off-screen" fun.