I do not normally read thriller/suspense titles, but in a spirit of adventure, I picked up the collaboration between Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston from the shelves. The Book of the Dead is the seventh title in the authors’ series featuring FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, who is a modern day Sherlock Holmes—skilled at detection, athletic, coldly intelligent, contemptuous of dim-witted police agents, a master of Eastern arts, and seemingly indestructible.
Pendergast, like Holmes, has a brother, Diogenes, but theirs is not a pleasant relationship. In this case Diogenes’s main goal is to destroy his brother and everything that he values. Even without having read the earlier books, I was immediately drawn into this story, and although in retrospect some of the events seem unlikely, Preston and Child have mastered the art of making the reader suspend disbelief. The Book of the Dead is fast-paced, moving quickly from Pendergast’s maximum security prison cell, where he is being held after being set up by his brother, to the Museum of Natural History in New York, where an old display of Egyptian artifacts is being revived, with tragic consequences. Preston and Child bring in interesting characters from several of their other collaborations, including a crack team to spring Pendergast from his cell in time for a confrontation with his past and with his brother. The cliffhanger ending assures readers that there is more to come.
Readers who enjoy a fast-paced thriller with lots of action and some elements of the supernatural will find a lot to enjoy here. It is a good summertime read.
Check the WRL catalog for The Book of the Dead
I love the Pendergast novels. I can’t wait ’til they release Cold Vengeance!