Book Review

By Derryll White

Sandford, John.  Escape Clause (2016).

This is one of the 12 novels in John Sandford’s ‘Virgil Flowers’ series, number nine in fact.  Sandford has a myriad of other novels published, but the Flowers ones have always had a quirkiness all their own.  It used to be that Virgil always hooked up with a lot of wonderful women and so he earned the sobriquet “Fuckin’” with his friends and co-workers, “that fuckin’ Flowers.”  But he has gone straight now with his lady Frankie.  They even buy a bed together here.

The author focuses in on the old eastern medicine demand for animal parts to heal all kinds of ailments.  It features large in ‘Escape Clause’ where two rare and listed Amur tigers are hijacked from the Minnesota Zoo, presumably to be processed for the eastern medicine trade.

There is a very pertinent side story where Frankie’s sister Sparkle is doing investigative work on migrant workers for her PhD.  Sandford writes about the working conditions and exploitation of illegal workers in the name of profits.

Most of the story, however, explores the fate of the tigers and the demands of ancient Chinese medicine.  It makes the reader think about the plight of the Indian and white rhinoceros, and Asian elephants as well as other species.  Sandford dwells on the money aspects of this trade as well as the function of zoos in trying to revive species.

‘Escape Clause’ is another of those novels that are embraced in the phrase ‘pure reading pleasure.’  Have some light moments with this one.

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 Excerpt from the novel:

RARE ANIMAL PARTS- “With tigers, over in Asia, sometimes the poachers will only take the eyes, heart, whiskers, teeth, penis and balls, and femur bones.  You could do that in an hour, maybe, put everything in a sack.  When you do that, you leave a lot of money on the ground.”

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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