Cold Vengeance

Special Agent Pendergast series
by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child 356 pages

If you like puzzle books and fast-paced thrillers, meet Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast. For me, Pendergast has the mind of Sherlock Holmes and looks like a strong, lithe Elf Lord. He always wears Italian tailored black suits (unless he's in one of his myriad disguises) and happens to live in the Dakota just off Central Park. Oh, and he sometimes works for the FBI.

More frequently we find Pendergast involved in his own investigations with his sidekick, Lieutenant Vincent D'Gosta, a sometimes NYPD detective. Quite often these investigations have a paranormal element which can be delightfully creepy or bordering Lovecraftian territory. Pendergast made his debut in the 1995 thriller Relic about an Amazonian monster let loose in the Museum of Natural History in New York. His subsequent cases have ranged over the globe, from the sewers of New York, Africa, the edge of a volcano in Italy, and a lost Tibetan monastery.

In the volume before this one, Fever Dream, Pendergast finds out that his wife's death while on safari in Africa was not a tragic accident. Someone had put blanks in her rifle. What Pendergast finds next is a vast web of conspiracy which crosses continents. NYPD Captain Laura Hayward, D'Gosta's lover, tells Vincent that Pendergast is reckless and lethal. More than once she reminds Vincent that Pendergast's perps rarely ever make it to court. They die.

In Cold Vengeance, Pendergast's brother-in-law Judson Esterhazy thinks he's murdered the FBI agent, but the Scottish police can't find Pendergast's body. This begins a cat and mouse game between Esterhazy and Pendergast which leads them back to the United States. Pendergast believes his wife might still be alive, somewhere in hiding. When he delves deeper into Helen's origins, he finds troubling ties to a Nazi doctor/war criminal. The climax comes when a German black ops assassin comes to New York to murder Pendergast and anyone else involved in the investigation. Have the Nazis gone underground in Germany only to re-surface in New York sixty-six years later?

Fever Dream and Cold Vengeance appear to be the first two novels in a trilogy within the Pendergast series, as Preston and Child did with their earlier trilogy about Diogenes, Pendergast's brilliant, criminally insane brother.

Though some fans haven't liked their recent novels as much as the earlier ones, I still think Preston and Child are the best paranormal thriller writers around. Pendergast has his own website and there are fan illustrations on the Internet as well. Some think Paul Bettany would be the best actor to play Pendergast. This earlier post by another book blogger explains why she thinks Agent Pendergast is the modern Sherlock Holmes. So, the game is still afoot!

Gideon's Corpse

by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, 355 pages

I'm guessing part of the reason Preston and Child have created a new character and series is to appeal to a younger demographic. Gideon Crew is younger than their Special Agent Pendergast, my favorite literary FBI agent (Fox Mulder is still my fave TV FBI guy). The Crew character is a former physicist at Los Alamos. Brilliant and troubled, he becomes a reluctant free-lancer for a secretive security firm in New York. Part of the reason he goes along on these dangerous assignments is that he's been told he has a fatal brain defect which will kill him in a year or two.

This time Gideon is hauled away from his New Mexico mountain retreat to deal with a former colleague who has apparently become a nuclear jihadist. The deranged scientist is holding hostages and ranting about being dosed with radiation and tortured. When the scientist is killed, the authorities find evidence that Washington DC will be hit with some sort of nuclear attack. Soon Gideon comes under suspicion himself, and has to go on the run. He still tries to figure out who the real terrorists are and stop them in time.

This is the type of book they tend to call "adrenaline" because the action never stops. The technology is cutting edge and plot elements are ripped from current headlines. Not much time is spent on character development or relationships. They have almost a cinematic pace and some of the "stunts" are more than a bit over the top. I would recommend the series if that's the sort of pacing and thrills you enjoy. I prefer the Special Agent Pendergast series---they are still thrillers, but I love the Pendergast character. He's like a super-strong Elven Sherlock Holmes. Now that's a detective to (almost) die for.