John Sandford

John Sandford is the pen name of John Roswell Camp, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author whose Prey series — spanning more than three decades and thirty-six novels — stands as one of the longest-running and most consistently successful crime fiction franchises in American publishing history. Born on February 23, 1944, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Camp grew up in the city and attended Cedar Rapids Washington High School, graduating in 1962. He went on to earn a bachelor's degree in American history and literature and a master's degree in journalism, both from the University of Iowa, before serving in the U.S. Army in Korea.

After leaving the military, Camp built a distinguished career in journalism. He wrote for The Miami Herald from 1971 to 1978, then relocated to Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he joined The St. Paul Pioneer Press as a general assignment reporter and, from 1980, as a daily columnist. In 1980 he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for a series on Native American culture. In 1985, during the Midwest farm crisis, he embedded himself with a southwest Minnesota family for a full year, producing a series titled "Life on the Land: An American Farm Family." That work won him the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award (1985) and, in 1986, the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing — journalism's highest honor. He later returned to write a follow-up on the same family, and continued to file dispatches as a journalist throughout his fiction career, including reporting from Iraq during the Iraq War.

The transition to fiction came in 1989, when Camp had two novels ready for publication simultaneously — a development that required a creative solution. His publisher suggested a pen name for one of them. The Fool's Run, a techno-thriller featuring computer hacker Kidd, was published under his real name. The second novel, Rules of Prey, featuring Minneapolis investigator Lucas Davenport, was published under the name John Sandford. The latter took off decisively, earning praise from Stephen King, Carl Hiaasen, and Robert B. Parker, and the pseudonym has been his working name ever since. The Chicago Tribune called it a thriller that was "trimmed-to-the-bone... scary... intriguing... unpredictable." Sandford never looked back.

The Prey series that Rules of Prey launched follows Lucas Davenport — sharp, fearless, independently wealthy, and perpetually magnetic — as he investigates the most complex and disturbing crimes in Minnesota, and later across the country in his role with the U.S. Marshals. The series has now run to thirty-six books over thirty-seven years, with every installment appearing on the New York Times bestseller list and twenty-eight debuting at #1 on the hardcover or combined lists. Notable entries include Eyes of Prey (1991), widely cited as one of the series' most gripping early installments, and continuing through Lethal Prey (2025) and the upcoming Revenge Prey (April 2026).

In 2007, Sandford launched a spin-off series starring Virgil Flowers — a thrice-divorced, affable, and deeply perceptive Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator who had appeared as a supporting character in the Prey novels. The Virgil Flowers series ran to twelve books, beginning with Heat Lightning and ending with Bloody Genius (2019). In 2022, Sandford launched a third series, Letty Davenport, featuring Lucas's adopted daughter — now a Stanford graduate and Department of Homeland Security investigator — beginning with The Investigator (2022) and continuing with Dark Angel (2023). All three series are set within a shared universe, with characters crossing over regularly. The Kidd series — four novels featuring a brilliant computer hacker and painter — runs parallel to the Prey universe. Sandford also co-authored the three-volume Singular Menace young adult techno-thriller trilogy with his wife, journalist Michele Cook, and wrote the science fiction standalone Saturn Run (2015) with photographer and science fiction writer Ctein.

Two of Sandford's Prey novels were adapted as television movies: Mind Prey (1999), starring Eriq La Salle as Lucas Davenport, and Certain Prey (2011), starring Mark Harmon as Davenport. In 2025, the Mystery Writers of America named Sandford a recipient of the Edgar Grand Master Award — the organization's highest lifetime honor, recognizing a body of work of significant and consistently high quality. On receiving the award, he said: "Believe me when I say I'm extremely flattered to be included in the company of so many great storytellers, people I've read and admired for years."

Away from the desk, Camp is a man of considerable range. In 1980, he solo-paddled a canoe the entire length of the Mississippi River — from Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico — in sixty-nine days, an achievement he has described as mostly miserable and something he would never do again. He holds a black belt in Shotokan karate, is an avid skier, golfer, hunter, and fisherman, and is a serious painter. He is the principal sponsor of the Tel Rehov archaeological excavations in Israel's Beth-Shean Valley, one of the most significant active Iron Age digs in the region. Camp was married to Susan Lee Jones from 1966 until her death from breast cancer in May 2007; they had two children and three grandchildren. He married his writing partner, Michele Cook, in October 2013. They live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.