In THE INVESTIGATOR, John Sandford kicks off a new series starring Letty Davenport, the 24-year-old adopted daughter of Lucas and Weather Davenport.

A graduate of Stanford with a master’s in economics, Letty is working for U.S. Senator Christopher Colles in a boring job that she hates. Her exceptional life experiences put her in a position of knowing how to solve cases and work with law enforcement and other professionals. But before she has a chance to quit, Colles offers her a job with the Department of Homeland Security investigating the theft of oil from Texas. The Senator is mostly interested in where the money from the oil sales is going and who is facilitating the thefts. Could a militia group be behind the scheme? If so, who are these people, and who are they supplying? What do they have planned for the oil and the money it generates?

"The suspense builds as Sandford’s protagonists get to the town where the big event is going to take place. Readers will find themselves breathless until they reach the end, and they will look forward to the next Letty Davenport adventure."

Letty is thrilled at the prospect of putting her investigative skills into a new career opportunity working with DHS investigator John Kaiser, who is not happy about being paired with her. But once he sees her skills with a gun, he changes his mind. The first job they tackle is to find Jane Jael Hawkes, a former soldier and the leader of an ugly militia group. Hawkes joined the Army to escape the hardscrabble life she lived with her “white-trash loafer, hard drinker, and sometime over-the-road truck driver” father. But she learned that “some things you are born with you can never escape.” Thus, she began to attract people to her group, ResistUS, and they labeled themselves “Jael-Birds.”

Letty and Kaiser travel to Texas where the oil thefts are going into high gear. They meet with oilman Vermillion Wright, who tells them that he is concerned about the disappearance of Bradley “Boxie” Blackburn, one of his employees who is looking into the oil problems. They immediately drive to Boxie’s house and find him and his wife dead under their bed, clearly the victims of a homicide. Could Hawkes and her zealous followers be responsible for these killings, as well as the theft of the oil?

While on a stakeout of the militia members, Letty and Kaiser stumble upon an abandoned shack, where they find an instrument used in the oil heist along with a pile of pamphlets hidden with Hawkes’ book. Between them, they come up with a plan to search out the leaders of the militia and inform Wright, who happens to be in the hospital recovering from surgery, and his colleagues about what they have witnessed and uncovered.

With each piece of the puzzle falling into place, Letty and Kaiser begin to trust and respect each other. They realize that they have an opportunity to share their personal experiences solving complicated cases based on the various kinds of training each has had. Together, they assemble all the clues into a whole plan that gives them a clear picture of what the militia is about to pull off.

The suspense builds as Sandford’s protagonists get to the town where the big event is going to take place. Readers will find themselves breathless until they reach the end, and they will look forward to the next Letty Davenport adventure.