Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | SCD FICTION PRE 11 DISCS | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove) | SCD FICTION PRE 11 DISCS | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | SCD FICTION PRE 11 DISCS | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Past and present collide as Special Agent Pendergast uncovers mysterious connections between a string of 19th century bear attacks in a Colorado mining town, a fabled, long-lost Sherlock Holmes story, and a deadly present-day arsonist.
In 1876, in a mining camp called Roaring Fork in the Colorado Rockies, eleven miners were killed by a rogue grizzly bear. Corrie Swanson has arranged to examine the miners' remains. When she makes a shocking discovery, town leaders try to stop her from exposing their community's dark and bloody past.
Just as Special Agent Pendergast of the FBI arrives to rescue his protege, the town comes under siege by a murderous arsonist who-with brutal precision-begins burning down multimillion-dollar mansions with the families locked inside. Drawn deeper into the investigation, Pendergast discovers a long-lost Sherlock Holmes story that may be the key to solving both the mystery of the long-dead miners and the modern-day killings as well.
Now, with the ski resort snowed in and under savage attack-and Corrie's life suddenly in grave danger-Pendergast must solve the enigma of the past before the town of the present goes up in flames.
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 (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Sherlock Holmes fans will relish Preston and Child's 13th novel featuring eccentric FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast (after 2012's Two Graves), one of their best in this popular series. In the prologue, set in 1889 at a London restaurant, Oscar Wilde not only advises Conan Doyle on how to improve the character of Holmes, who so far has appeared only in A Study in Scarlet, but also tells a horrible tale about a mining camp that the aesthete visited during his American tour a few years before. The details of Wilde's story gradually come out in the main, present-day narrative, in which Pendergast's protege, Corrie Swanson, a student at Manhattan's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, is undertaking "a large-scale study of perimortem trauma on human bones inflicted by a large carnivore." Her starting point will be Roaring Fork, Colo., where a bear killed and ate 11 miners in 1876. Corrie's arrival in Roaring Fork coincides with a serious of grisly murders that Pendergast later comes to believe are related to the 19th-century bear attacks. Lee Child, Clive Cussler, Anne Rice, and Peter Straub have all supplied blurbs for this installment, which easily stands on its own with only passing references to Pendergast's complex backstory. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Preston and Child (Two Graves, 2012, etc.) bring back FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, expert in the psychology of serial killers and other criminal deviants. Pendergast is independently wealthy, and despite his cold, logical nature, he possesses a certain compassion, explaining his support of the once-troubled, youthful Corrie Swanson as she navigates the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Corrie needs a thesis to please a chauvinist professor. She finds it after discovering a story told by Oscar Wilde to Arthur Conan Doyle at a literary dinner. The tale related to no crime, but rather the 1876 killing of miners in Roaring Fork, Colo., by a grizzly bear. Her thesis: a study of perimortem trauma on human bones. The problem: Roaring Fork is now a ski resort of "oppressive wealth, entitlement, and smugness"--think Aspen--and the powers-that-be, land-developing descendants of silver barons who raped the mountains, deny her access to the bodies recently exhumed because of a new construction project. Pendergast leverages permission, and Swanson begins her study, only to discover the miners were killed--and cannibalized--by humans. Shocking, certainly, but something else wicked her way comes: A modern-day fiend is murdering moneyed Roaring Fork residents and incinerating their bodies by burning down their mansions. Pendergast remains one of crime fiction's memorable protagonists--pale, silvery of eye, inscrutable of mien, always black-clad--and it's he who discovers the old deaths bear witness to the new. The authors provide a reasonable supporting cast, including a rich-boy ski bum now town librarian; an overwhelmed sheriff who grows into his job; Roger Kleefisch, a Baker Street Irregular, who assists Pendergast in uncovering lost Conan Doyle esoterica; and Captain Stacy Bowdree, lone descendant of one of the dead miners. Jaded crime fiction buffs might find the premise hyperbolic, but beneath the overwrought headlines Pendergast solves captivating mysteries.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
In searching for a topic for her thesis, Corrie Swanson, a third-year criminal justice student, finds an article about a conversation between Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle that had the famous creator of Sherlock Holmes fleeing from the room horrified. Learning that in 1876 a number of miners in the town of Roaring Fork, CO, had been attacked and eaten by a grizzly bear, Corrie travels to Roaring Fork to examine the miners' bones, but before she gets a look, the developers of the town's exclusive ski resort have her thrown in jail on trumped-up charges. Corrie did see enough to believe that the marks on the bones were made by something much more sinister than a bear. FBI Special Agent Aloysius Xingu L. Pendergast (Two Graves) comes to her rescue and offers his help. As a series of arsons threaten to light up Roaring Fork, Corrie and Aloysius must solve the riddle of the town's past. VERDICT Preston and Child have again given the readers a vibrant, thrilling, and sometimes shocking read with unexpected twists and surprises that is sure to delight. [See Prepub Alert, 5/20/13.]-Cynde Suite, Bartow Cty. Lib. Syst., Adairsville, GA (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
