Heat Lightning

Heat Lightning is a 2008 crime novel by John Sandford, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons as a 388-page book.

The case begins with an anomaly rather than a motive. Two victims are discovered with lemons placed in their mouths, which is a signature without an explanation, and Flowers has to establish what the two people had in common before the pattern can be used. The novel's time pressure comes from that, since a connection identified late would be a connection identified after another death.

Sandford's series is built on procedure: the investigator's movements, the interviews and the records are the plot, and the reader follows the reasoning rather than waiting for a revelation. Sandford's novels are procedurally detailed, and the reader is given the same incomplete picture as the investigator, which is why the book can run on an anomaly as thin as a piece of fruit. The Vietnam veteran material connects the murders to a shared past rather than to a single motive, and the investigation has to establish that link before it can act on it. Virgil Flowers works for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which places the case inside a state agency rather than a city police department.