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Summary
Summary
When a longtime enemy shows up dead on Pendergast's doorstep, the murder investigation leads him into his own dark past as a vengeful killer waits in the shadows.
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 . . .
Author Notes
Douglas Jerome Preston was born on May 20, 1956 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He received a B.A. in English literature from Pomona College in 1978. His career began at the American Museum of Natural History, where he worked as an editor and writer from 1978 to 1985. He also was a lecturer in English at Princeton University.
He became a full-time writer of both fiction and nonfiction books in 1986. Many of his fiction works are co-written with Lincoln Child including Relic, Riptide, Thunderhead, The Wheel of Darkness, Cemetery Dance, and Gideon's Corpse. His nonfiction works include Dinosaurs in the Attic; Cities of Gold: A Journey Across the American Southwest in Pursuit of Coronado; Talking to the Ground; and The Royal Road. He has written for numerous magazines including The New Yorker; Natural History; Harper's; Smithsonian; National Geographic; and Travel and Leisure. He became a New York Times Best Selling author with his titles Two Graves and Crimson Shores which he co-wrote with Lincoln Child, and his titles White Fire, The Lost Island Blue Labyrinth and The Lost City of the Monkey God.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this exciting 14th series entry (after White Fire), FBI special agent Aloysius X.L. Pendergast is shocked to discover the corpse of one of his sons-an evil twin, Alban-on his doorstep. His investigation of the murder leads him to an unused silver mine near California's Salton Sea, where he's exposed to a paralyzing agent that, over the remaining two thirds of the novel, causes his gradual debilitation. With dwindling physical resources he tries to discover who would want to kill him and his son and why. Meanwhile, his ward, Constance, his friend NYPD Lt. Vincent D'Agosta, and Dr. Margo Green try to solve a murder in the New York Museum of Natural History that might lead to the elusive antidote. After narrating the last nine adventures, reader Auberjonois has perfected Pendergast's deceptively soft southern accent and D'Agosta's gruff bellow. He also has the valuable knack of presenting women's voices as feminine without sounding false or forced. As one might expect from a complex, always-in-motion, event-packed novel, its character count is high. As for the over-educated, intemperate young detective, the snarling crooked cop, the gravel-voiced master criminal, the cackling desert rat, the museum technician with a stuffy nose, and the Portuguese street thug, Auberjonois has them all covered. A Grand Central hardcover. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Preston and Child (White Fire, 2013, etc.) return with another adventure for modern crime fiction's most esoteric detective, FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast. Badged by the FBI but given free rein, wealthy as a wizard Wall Street trader, intelligent enough to make Mensa members feel inferior, master of exotic Chongg Ran meditation, Pendergast, "skin as pale as marble, eyes like silver conchas," shoulders his custom 1911 Les Baer Thunder Ranch Special .45 and sets out to find the killer who deposited his estranged son, Alban, dead on his Manhattan mansion's doorstep. Alban is autopsied, and an exotic turquoise is found in his stomach. At the American Museum of Natural History, Pendergast consults an expert gemologistworth reading if buying turquoiseand heads for California's Salton Sea in search of the Golden Spider Mine, all while giving only passing notice to a museum murder under investigation by his friend Lt. Vincent D'Agosta. So begins Pendergast's deconstruction of a deadly conspiracy originating with patent medicine and ending with bizarre battlestriflic acid, poison darts and Sumatran buckthorn as weaponsat the museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. A Pendergast ancestor, Hezekiah, built the family's fortune on an elixir that ultimately left users with ALS- or Huntingon's Disease-like symptoms. Now the villain is spurred by epigenetic changes wrought on users' descendants by "Hezekiah's Compound Elixir and Glandular Restorative." Pendergast visits exotic climes for clues, and the authors offer sparkling descriptionsthe Salton Fontainebleau is a "fantastical cross between a Chinese temple and an Asbury Park amusement parlor." Constance Greene and other familiar characters appear, and Pendergast learns a startling truth about Alban, whose warped psyche had once wrought havoc. Great character-driven crime fictionreaders new to the series won't be entirely lost, and Pendergast patrons will be thoroughly satisfied. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.