This is book 25 of the "Prey" series.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

This is a good one. Letty gets involved again, but she's grown up a lot; though he's sure she doesn't know enough about "crazy". Lucas is a bit clearer on who she is, too.

So, this one we start with Letty befriending a girl and her boy who wander around ("travelers", but not in the English sense, just people who are really committed to wandering). The boy goes missing, the girl is sure Pilot (later Pilate) has killed him. Then the girl goes missing.

(The name switch isn't a mistake; well, not by the author anyway. There's confusion, since Letty's friend thinks he calls himself "the Pilot", but other sources make it just "Pilate". And it's never explained; but since it's discussed, it's clearly not the author getting them confused :-). Actually it feels like a pointer to something that's never followed up.

We end up with a gaudy running battle through Wisconsin and Michigan, including a Juggalo gathering, ending up with a big fight in the U.P. And some very nice small-town and even amateur law-enforcement people playing major roles (most of whom have combat time in Afghanistan or Iraq; Lucas realizes they actually know small-unit operations better than he does).

Meanwhile, Lucas is being annoyed by the idiot BCA director, though all the good BCA employees are on his side (even the ones who don't like him). Must be nice. The governor offers to fire the director, but Lucas just quits. At the very end he tells Letty that he's not going to spend his time in a row-boat, though. The next book is out, and the blurb indicates Lucas is on the governor's campaign staff in his run for President.