Abduction, Obsession at Heart of Chilling ‘Mind’

It’s hard to say which is more terrifying, the images we conjure in our minds while reading a scary book or the ones provided for us if the book is made into a movie.

Fans of the chilling detective novels by John Sandford (the pseudonym for Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp) can decide for themselves tonight when ABC airs “John Sandford’s Mind Prey,” starring coolly efficient, nonemotive “ER” doctor Eriq La Salle as coolly efficient, nonemotive police detective and computer-game creator Lucas Davenport. Shot through with a women-in-jeopardy creepiness that somewhat recalls “The Silence of the Lambs,” this movie introduces a number of disturbing scenes that will keep playing on the TV screen in your mind for hours afterward.

Set in and around Minneapolis-St. Paul, where Davenport holds down his dual careers, the story focuses on the detective’s hunt for a computer game-obsessed psychopath (Titus Welliver) who has abducted a mother (Sheila Kelley) and her two young daughters (Natasha Greenblatt and Dara Perlmutter).

Adam Greenman’s teleplay, based on Sandford’s novel of the same name, is effective enough, though lines such as “I’ll see you in hell, Davenport” are so cliched that they instill their own sort of terror. Director DJ Caruso and director of photography Bing Sokolsky keep the lighting dark (nighttime, rainstorms) and the spaces confined so that the movie often has the look of one of those violent computer games--an effective touch.

Still, for all its ickiness, “Mind Prey”--which La Salle helped produce--isn’t much different from an episode of any of the standard network detective series.

* “John Sandford’s Mind Prey” airs tonight at 9 on ABC. The network has rated it TV-14-LV (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14, with advisories for language and violence).