Two Times Four
by Daisy Maryles, with Dick Donahue -- Publishers Weekly, 4/28/1997
Maybe he ran out of titles, or maybe he just needed a change. Whatever the reason, John Sandford has struck fictional gold in a new lode, with The Night Crew taking this week's #4 spot just three weeks after its on-sale date (copies in print: 256,000). Sandford's latest marks a departure from his eight bestselling "Prey" novels (Rules of Prey, Shadow Prey, etc.), in which rugged Minneapolis cop Lucas Davenport has foiled many a dastardly villain. The Night Crew switches locales to Los Angeles, where a group of video freelancers scouring the city for news get considerably more than they bargained for. Putnam's publicity campaign for this edge-of-the-seat novel has featured national print advertising along with TV ads on "Today," "Law and Order," "Chicago Hope," and CNN. In addition, Sandford -- a pseudonym for Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp -- is just winding up a 10-city coast-to-coast tour. And, luckily for readers, Davenport is still pounding the pavement: his latest outing, Sudden Prey, hits this week's mass market list-also in fourth place. The Berkley release went on sale April 15 with a first printing of 1.3 million.
