The Prey books do take place in chronological order, although people seem to read them out of order. Similarly, the Kidd novels take place in a particular order, and people often start with the second novel because the paperback erroneously claims that it's first. The full list, by series, is:

1. Rules of Prey (1989)

2. Shadow Prey (1990)

3. Eyes of Prey (1991)

4. Silent Prey (1992)

5. Winter Prey (1993)

6. Night Prey (1994)

7. Mind Prey (1995)

8. Sudden Prey (1996)

9. Secret Prey (1998)

10. Certain Prey (1999)

11. Easy Prey (2000)

12. Chosen Prey (2001)

13. Mortal Prey (2002)

14. Naked Prey (2003)

15. Hidden Prey (2004)

16. Broken Prey (2005)

17. Invisible Prey (2007)

18. Phantom Prey (2008)

Dark of the Moon (2007)

Heat Lightning (Forthcoming, 2008)

1. The Fool's Run (1989)

2. The Empress File (1991)

3. The Devil's Code (2000)

4. The Hanged Man's Song (2003)

The Night Crew (1997)

Dead Watch (2006)

The most recent hardcover was Phantom Prey, on May 6, 2008. The most recent paperback was Invisible Prey, on April 29, 2008.

The next hardcover novel will be Heat Lightning in autumn of 2008. The next paperback release will be Dark of the Moon, around the same time.

Yes. The author is currently planning at least three more Prey novels, after Phantom Prey.

Possibly. We're going over ideas for a fifth Kidd novel, but have yet to reach any sort of consensus. All we've agreed on is that it will have to be a very different novel than the previous ones.

Probably not.

The author thought for a while that he'd write a second Anna-and-company book at some point in "the future", but has since decided that Anna is basically a female Lucas, minus the badge. And having two characters that similar, by the same author, is just redundant.

Further, Los Angeles really isn't his area. He knows the Twin Cities and the surrounding countryside, but he just doesn't have the same rapport with the west coast. And one of his favorite authors, Robert Crais (who is, in turn, one of my dad's fans) does have that rapport with L.A. So my dad's leaving the west-coast stuff to him, although there's no formal agreement (and a formal agreement would be kinda weird anyway).

One already has, sort of. In 1998, Jaffe/Braunstein Films, Ltd. made a TV-movie of Mind Prey. Since then, there has been no activity that we're aware of.

That said, the author does not have any control over whether the books get made or not (except that he could hypothetically refuse to sell rights). If a production company buys the rights, what happens next is entirely beyond his control. Many, many people complained about the casting in the made for TV movie, but the author had no say in it. That's how Hollywood works.

No. Writing is generally very solitary, so while there are occasional collaborations between bestselling authors, they remain the exception rather than the rule. Other authors may mention Lucas or Lucas-like characters in their novels, and John Sandford frequently includes references to other authors and their characters, but there will not be any direct crossovers or collaborations.

He's thought about it, but it seems unlikely. Lucas may get hurt – even severely – in future novels. But killed? That might damage the sales of the rest of the books. Plus, it'd probably be a depressing ending, and depressing endings aren't what the reader wants for this kind of novel.

Because the publication dates of The Fool's Run and Rules of Prey were too close together (Rules of Prey was slated for July of 1989, and The Fool's Run was going to come out the following September). Now, it's considered poor form to have two debut novels released in the space of that short a time, or even to have two debut novels period. Since The Fool's Run had already been sold under the name John Camp, a pseudonym had to be used for the other book (because Putnam didn't want Henry Holt riding on the publicity for Rules of Prey).

Sandford is his paternal grandmother's maiden name. Sometimes he'll say that he's named after his great-grandfather Sandford. While that's true, it still leaves four possibilities. I'm just narrowing it down to one by phrasing it the way I do.

No, he hasn't written any children's books. Nor has he illustrated any. There is, however, a writer/illustrator named John Sandford who writes primarily children's books. He is not in any way related to this author.

This one's a little more irritating, because the writer people are thinking of with regards to this question is John Sanford. Note the lack of a "d" in the middle of the last name. About half the reviews of the author's books spell his name as "Sanford", and even Amazon Dot Com gets it wrong, including links to John Sandford and John Sanford (the Christian philosophy writer) in the listings for the Prey novels, despite the two being completely different.

It doesn't stop there. When I tried to register the johnsandford.com domain, I filled out all the forms properly, waited the required length of time, and was eventually given the keys to – you guessed it – johnsanford.com. Which is wrong. And the people at InterNic actually asked, "Well, is that a really big problem?". Growl.

Of course, it eventually turned out that johnsandford.com was already taken anyway. It'd been taken by a company that exists to register celebrity names and hold them until the "rightful" celebrity shows up to take it away, so the name doesn't get used for porn sites. And, as a special bonus, if you are the rightful celebrity, they'll give it to you for free! It's a service, you see. For the public good.

The reason, then, that we're using johnsandford.org is that when I inquired as to the terms of the "free" transfer, I got an invoice for $750. Sorry, but no deal. And since the site's non-profit anyway, I figure .org is just as good as .com. It still kinda pisses me off though.

And now you know.