By Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
A long-buried family secret has come back to haunt Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast…
It begins with murder. One of Pendergast’s most implacable, most feared enemies is found on his doorstep, dead. Pendergast has no idea who is responsible for the killing, or why the body was brought to his home. The mystery has all the hallmarks of the perfect crime, save for an enigmatic clue: a piece of turquoise lodged in the stomach of the deceased.
The gem leads Pendergast to an abandoned mine on the shore of California’s Salton Sea, which in turn propels him on a journey of discovery deep into his own family’s sinister past.
But Pendergast learns there is more at work than a ghastly episode of family history: he is being stalked by a subtle killer bent on vengeance over an ancient transgression. And he soon becomes caught in a wickedly clever plot, which leaves him stricken in mind and body, and propels him toward a reckoning beyond anything he could ever have imagined…
Another exciting Pendergast novel! After fourteen novels, you’d think Preston and Child would be running out of ideas, but apparently not.
SPOILERS
Okay this might be not that much of a spoiler since it happens in the first two chapters, but Preston and Child decided to kill off Pendergast’s son, Alban. Which I’m not sure was actually a good idea. They only really utilized Alban for one book and now….dead. Hmm.
Anyway, this book starts off in typical Pendergast fashion, following a few threads that seem like they have nothing to do with each other and then miraculously tying them up in a neat little box.
I don’t usually complain on implausibility in a book series that relies on more than a touch of the supernatural. But I must say the climax of this book was a bit implausible. Resurrecting an antidote that didn’t work and fixing it because one of the ingredients was improperly prepared? And then another ingredient having gone extinct, so they used something similar? Um, okay.
Still all in all another good entry in the series. Loved the Constance twist, too.
END SPOILERS
