I need to "quote" 2 commenters from below. I LOVE Virgil Flowers books of all the John Sandford novels. And, I too like Virgil more when he is in a rural, out in the farms, ranches and small towns of Minnesota. This one took place at a large college. It was good, kept my attention and the last 1/3 of the book really wound up being true Virgil Flowers for sure.
I look forward to the next VF book....but hope that one goes back to the backwoods area where Virgil is more comfortable. Oh, and I can hardly wait for his twins to be born! That might put a tiny crimp in Virgil's life style and detecting!

I like all of John Sanford's books. But I especially like his Virgil Flowers' novels. BLOODY GENIUS is the 12th edition in the series and it's a humdinger. More false trails than usual and some genuinely unique characters make it a lot of fun. Hook up the false trails with the title, and you get a small spoiler of what is going to be happening. Great read.

I like Flowers best in a more rural environment where his kookiness blends in better.

I always enjoy reading how Virgil Flowers's mind works as he follows a crime from clue to clue to clue, and Bloody Genius was no different. The humor in this series makes it lighter fare, which is always fun to read. Flowers is hilarious but is also a first-rate investigator, which is definitely required in this book as this particular investigation includes prostitutes, students, crooked lawyers, a CEO of an up and coming company, scam artists, and the victim's past wives. Whew!

I very much liked a lot of the characters, but especially Harry, the man in his 70s, who owns three McDonalds. (Harry has his own theory about the case, developed from his years of watching Gibbs on NCIS!)

There was one part I was uncomfortable with. I know it was meant to be funny but who does that??? I found it to be jarring, juvenile, and NOT funny.

Perhaps my least favorite of Sanford's books, though an average Sanford is much better than most authors.
I guess my biggest negative is all the red herrings in the book. But after fishing in the sea for the first 200 pages it becomes classic f***in' Flowers.