Fever Dream, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

"What?", you say. "Didn't she already put an entry about this book?" No, I didn't. Read carefully. It's a different one. Try having two Pendergast novels and not reading them back to back. It's impossible. I've tried. It can't be done.

In this one, Pendergast finds out that his wife (wife we had never heard of) didn't die in a tragic accident while hunting lions, because the weapon she was using was loaded with blanks. She was murdered, and, even though it was twelve years ago and the trail is as cold as it gets, Pendergast decides to hunt down her killer and do her justice the Pendergast way: killing them.

I liked this book better than the last one, I think, just because the science fiction bit was left to a minimum and the story was almost believable (avian flu that turns you into a brilliant mind before driving you crazy and killing you? Okay). D'Agosta is only present at the beginning of the story and then his spot is taken by his brilliant girlfriend, Laura Hayward, who doesn't approve of Pendergast but ends up liking his style a little too much. There are shootings, there are life threatening situations and there is treason. And a 140 year-old woman who looks 23 and decides to throw her baby in the Atlantic ocean while on a cruise.

I'm curious to see how the Southern readers take to this book, because their inhabitants are depicted as a bunch red neck, illiterate animals who can't tell right from wrong and could serially rape a woman without blinking. Apart from that, Louisiana is depicted as the beautiful state it is, and the book only raises more questions about the Pendergast family and the mysterious fire that destroyed the family mansion. I think we still haven't heard all there is to hear about Aloysious and his brother Diogenes, although this last one has been dead for a few books now. I wouldn't be surprised to find out the roles of good and evil were reversed in the past.

A summer without Pendergast novels. How am I going to cope?

Cemetery dance, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

I don't know how this authors do it, but they seem to be waiting for me to go on holidays to publish their books. Okay, let's be fair, this one was published so long ago that it's already in paperback, but I just found out a few weeks ago. So I bought it. Obviously.

The Pendergast books are easy reads, kind of a roller coaster ride of emotions and flashy scenes one after the other. Once you have followed them for a while (this book is part of a series), you know their way of doing things and you know what to expect: exposition up to page 100, series of events to page 400 and, 50 pages before the book is over, great ride that won't allow you to put the book down until you've finished. Good thing school is out for the summer.

In this book, FBI agent Aloysious Pendergast and his side kick Lieutenant D'Agosta investigate a series of strange murders that seem to have been perpetrated by dead people. The main suspect is a sect or cult of sorts that lives deep in an urban forest in the middle of Manhattan (and I think it really exists, but without sect), where zombiis seem to be appearing. The story has it's share of gore, like all the Pendergast books, and depends heavily on coincidence and luck, but hey, who said I was reading this for the content? I'm just hear for the thrill!

Preston and Child have written books on their own, all of them thrillers and some with a touch of science fiction, like the Pendergast books, but their true success comes from their work together. I hope they don't stop writing the series or don't kill Pendergast off; there's still a great deal we need to know about this strange character.

All in all, an entertaining read for those lazy summer afternoon. Better served chilled.

The Wheel of Darkeness, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

When your mind is busy with facts, dates and titles, the only thing you feel like reading is something that will let your mind wander without missing a bit of what't happening in the pages. The Wheel of Darkness is such a book, a story you can read without effort, a real page turner that won't let you put it down until you have finished it, but that won't let much of a trace on your mind when you're done with it. Exactly what I needed right now.

FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast has taken his ward, Constance Greene, to a secluded oriental monastery so she can recover from the horrible experience of the murder of Diogenes Pendergast, Aloysius' evil brother, who seduced her and got her pregnant before she realized that his only intentions were to hurt his older brother. But not all is peace and quiet in the monastery, for someone has stolen the Agozyen, an evil object whose aim is to cleanse the world of its most dangerous burden: human kind. Pendergast will have to recover it from a murderer who is hiding in a luxury ocean-liner, only to discover that he is not inmune to the dangers of the mysterious object hidden in the Agozyen box.

Agent Pendergast is the most interesting character Preston and Child have been able to create in their more than half a dozen novels together. He grows more interesting as the novels advance, giving the impression that his creators didn't have a clear idea of how they wanted him to be in the first couple of books. Highly intelligent, cool, always resourceful, he is as unbelievable as the perfect James Bond, but there's something about him that attracts readers and makes us want to know more about this man and his story.

Worthy read if you like thrillers with a touch of sci-fi, although maybe not as brilliant as The Cabinet of Curiosities, where we are introduced to the Pendergast family secrets and begin to know this man a little more. I would advice you to read at least this book before you embark yourself in the Pendergast universe, or it will be difficult for you to understand a few concepts in this last novel. Open your mind to impossible things, to people who look to be twenty-something when their actually a few hundred years old, to misty bodies of smoke who will take away your soul if you are not strong enough... A nice way to spend away an afternoon, if you don't expect deep insights.