Dance of Death (2005)

After reading Brimstone, I couldn't wait to get into the follow up novel, Dance of Death. The dynamic writing duo of Preston and Child have carefully crafted an story that brings a new level to serialization.

In Brimstone, you may recall that Agent Pendergrast was hot on the trail of his archenemy brother, Diogenes. Clearly there was bad blood between them, and that was before Pendergrast got bricked up inside an Italian castle. This time Diogenes is planning a horrific crime, and Pendergrast enlists the aid of his policeman friend, Vinny D'Agosta to stop the crime. The only thing blocking them is that they don't know what he's going to do, when he's gonna do it, or even where he really is. And they can't turn to conventional law enforcement because according to them Diogenes died years ago, and isn't even alive. Yeah, this is an easy crime to solve!

What follows is a great story on two levels. The first is that this book's story stands on its own, and is a decent read as the plot progresses at runaway freight train speed, or maybe faster in a few spots. The second level is what makes it even better. Throughout Dance of Death, there are references to characters and plots from many of the other novels that these authors have written. It's a real treat for the dedicated reader to find references to (and characters and locations from) Relic, Cabinet, Thunderhead, The Ice Limit (my favorite is the Extreme Engineering Solutions stuff where they even talk about the unfinished mission of a certain large rock...), and the more recent Still Life With Crows, and even Mount Dragon. Preston and Child have labored hard to populate their universe with complex and dynamic characters, and they are not afraid to call on them as the situation arises. They refer to this as "pangea" and it clearly sets them apart from other authors.

In my view, Dance of Death is a really fine thriller, and about as good as it can get. While it's a lot of work to read such a pile of books to really appreciate it, the serious fan will be well rewarded for their effort. Any fan of thrillers should put the Preston & Child duo at the top of their reading list as I do.

Overall Grade: A+

Reviewed by Jonas

Brimstone (2004)

Brimstone is the follow up novel to Still Life With Crows from the Preston and Child writing duo. It features their main protagonist, Agent Pendergrast, who is the unstoppable FBI agent. He also gets assisted from some characters we've seen before, including police officer Vincent D'Agosta, a New York cop that could give DeMille's John Corey a run for his money.

Unlike the man vs. nature theme that they often feature, this time it's more of a murder mystery in Brimstone. Prominent New Yorkers from the upper crust of society are experiencing a not so minor issue of spontaneous human combustion. As the bodies pile up, Pendergrast follows the trail from New York, on over to Italy where half the novel takes place.

Along the way, we take a few side trips to the house from The Cabinet of Curiosities. We now find out who the eyes from the previous novel belong to, although there is still more to be told as to who Constance is. We also set the stage for the next two novels as we are introduced to Diogenes, Agent Pendergrast's evil brother. There's clearly going to be a showdown when this is all done, and this novel is known as the first of the "Diogenes Trilogy."

This duo is known for crackling detail written thrillers, and a creepiness that's hard to explain. Brimstone clearly delivers on both counts. It's also notable that they draw on the grandmaster of horror writing himself, Edgar Allen Poe, with a scene right out of "The Cask of Amontillado," which a few may recall was our first reading assignment during freshman year at high school (not counting the initial summer reading, of course). Yes, Preston and Child can match the creepiness of Poe, which is no small achievement.

My only criticism of Brimstone is that after 500 pages of excellence, it ends on a cliffhanger of an unfinished note. Maybe it's just me, but I like more of a resolution, but thankfully, the next few novels in the series are out, and I'll be looking for Dance of Death soon.

Overall Grade: A

Reviewed by Jonas

For our other reviews of their work, click here and here.

Read the first chapter here.

The Ice Limit (2000)

I always enjoy the writing duo of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Together, they are masters of the technothriller, and also incorporate the timeless theme of man versus nature. Time after time, they can tell a great story of man taking on some project, planning it to the nth degree, and it all turning to junk as the characters couldn't plan for every eventuality.

While many of their novels focus of Agent Pendergrast, The Ice Limit is an earlier one, and really has none of their recurring characters (although they always manage to sneak in some reference to another novel's character somewhere in their ever expanding universe; see here for details).

In The Ice Limit, the task centers around the retrieval of a meteorite. While it seems simple at first, the level of difficulty grows as the details emerge: it's on an island near the Drake Passage, it will be the heaviest object ever moved by man, it's winter, the Chilean government would block expedition if they knew about it, it's of an unknown substance that's harder than anything on the Moh's scale, and the list goes on and on, including one more little detail: if you touch it you'll die instantly from the energy contained within. Yeah, this should be an easy day's work, right?

Billionaire Palmer Lloyd wants this rock at his new museum in the Hudson Valley to be his centerpiece exhibit. What's a rich guy with tons of money to do? He enlists the aid of an engineering consulting firm, Effective Engineering Solutions, who agree to take on the job for an exorbitant price. In order to move the meteorite they even refit an oil supertanker for the task, but need to hire a skipper with a checkered past for this most unusual moving job.

As the novel proceeds, it gets more and more interesting. The title refers to the place down by Antarctica where it's so cold that there is always ice on the ocean. Needless to say, at some point they end up down there, and it's a great ride for the reader as we follow the twists and turns of this awesome technothriller. While some of the science is literally out of this world, I could find no fault with any of it.

My only criticism of this book is that at the conclusion, it kind of has an unsettling feeling, and not a real resolution. While the authors originally intended it as such, they did take things a little further and wrote a web only epilogue to The Ice Limit. While that adds a little to the overall story, reportedly they do have a sequel planned, but no word when that might be out. In the meantime, for a science minded individual seeking some great fiction, it's hard to top the writing of Preston & Childs.

Overall Grade: A

Reviewed by Jonas

Addendum: The day I put up this review, I find this story about a ship down in the area of the ice limit.

Still Life With Crows (2003)

In a word, wow! Rarely have I read a book that is plotted as well as this, and reads so fluidly as Still Life With Crows by Preston and Child.

This novel is the sequel to Cabinet of Curiosities, also by the same writing duo. The common character is Agent Pendergrast, who works for the FBI "out of the New Orleans office" who specializes in bizarre cases, but we have yet to learn what his real story is, which is part of the intrigue of this series.

While the authors often use Western US locales (with the exception of the Museum of Natural History), this time the setting is Medicine Creek, Kansas. Before all of us NY snobs think that nothing could possibly be interesting among the cornfields, I will say that they succeed in making this prototypical, yet fictional, small town America town as real as any a place to visit. They portray it in a hot summer, with all of the fixin's from the sheriff, to the meat processing plant, to the meatloaf and potatoes on the plate of the local diner. The descriptions of all of these elements are very well done, and paint the imagery in fine detailed strokes.

The plot was a little bizarre mixed with horror which is the usual for this crew of writers. There is a string of killings of the local townsfolk of this Kansas town. The only pattern is that there is none, and local law enforcement, despite a good effort, makes little progress on the case. As time goes on, it gets more bizarre, and there is a mental trip back in time, similar to the previous novel in the series.

What is also intriguing is that randomly thrown in, there are two chapters that relate to the cataloging of the cabinet of curiosities from the previous novel. While not at all the focus of Still Life With Crows, it indicates that we haven't heard the last about this, and I look forward to hearing more.

The final verdict on Still Life With Crows is that it is excellent. I really can't think of any way to improve it. In an era of it's all been done before, somehow these authors mange to break new ground. Also, I often figure out the plot at least halfway through, and while I had a few suspicions, I was guessing about most of it all the way to the very end, through many twists and turns. Authors Preston and Childs make a great team, and I enjoyed this novel very much.

Overall Grade: A+

You can read an excerpt here.

The Cabinet of Curiosities (2002)

The Cabinet of Curiosities is actually the fourth book in this series by coauthors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs (The other novels are Relic, Reliquary and Thunderhead). Both authors have far reaching knowledge, and one worked at a natural history museum. In the other novels I have read from this duo, a "man vs. nature" theme dominates, but this time things are a little different. (As an aside, it's not "man vs. nature" like in a Jack London novel. Rather it's a high tech modern man who thinks with his expansive knowledge of science he can control and dominate nature. However, nature ends up winning in the end like in the London works).

The cabinets referred to in the title refer to collections of objects that were around in NYC in the mid 1800's. They were put together by amateur collectors, and inexpensive admissions attracted the masses. They were a blend of a little science, and a lot of shock value. Our modern equivalent is a Ripley's Believe It Or Not exhibit more than any natural history museum. Still, out of these exotic collections, New York's American Museum of Natural History, a collection unrivaled anywhere, was born.

Our novel starts when Nora Kelly, an archaeologist for the Museum of Natural History, is summoned to a stunning finding- thirty corpses in an old coal tunnel on the former site of one of these cabinet of curiousities. With boyfriend Smithback (both characters from previous novels) they embark on a dig to the truth that criss crosses both modern day Manhattan, as well as the city from the latter nineteenth century. Quite appropriately, there are multiple stops at the Museum where a bulk of the plot takes place. There is also a side trip through the Five Points area of 1870 Manhattan, which doesn't exist in modern day, but you may recall it from the setting of the film Gangs of New York which even has a DVD featurette about this haven for the poor and immigrants.

Warning: Science Content!

True to my new mission, there are some medical mistakes in the end. The description of the abdominal gunshot wound, and its treatment is riddled with errors. I can tell you that there is no way that a bullet that ruptures a spleen, would also take out the left colic vein as it is quite far away and take out quite a few other structures getting there. Also, like in many other parts of the body, the veins and arteries are bundled together. That means that any bullet that destroys a vein would also destroy the artery, realizing that unlike a knife, a bullet causes at least a cone of injury as it passes through structures. Finally, the description of the patient ligating their own colonic vein, which is virtually impossible without the artery as well, thus requiring a colon resection from the subsequent ischemia is far more fantasy than any reality. I'll buy someone suturing their arm or leg, but a self done trauma laparotomy, by someone with no medical training other than "pre-med" (which is basically nothing for surgical procedures) is never going to happen. It would have been better for the other character present, who took a medical school anatomy class, to control the hemorrhage.

Breathe a sigh of collective relief with that off of my chest. That medical moment was sponsored by The Armchair Critic. Feel free to comment below either way.

Medical nitpickin' aside, The Cabinet of Curiosities is one well planned, researched, and written novel. It is seriously creepy, and held my attention throughout with quite a bit of suspense at several points. While I thought I had it figured out early on, I was only partially correct, and it was far more complicated than I envisioned. If you want something a little different than a traditional thriller, with a side trip thrugh the bizarre, then put The Cabinet of Curiosities on your reading list.

Overall Grade: A-

The Codex

The Preston and Child novels can best be described as archaelogical thrillers taking us on adventure to far away lands. In The Codex, author Douglas Preston solos to write us quite a quest.

The theme is definitely Mayan, and much of the novel takes place in Central American jungles. This novel has a similar feel to Thunderhead in that it involves a quest into a very isolated area far from civilization and human contact.

Unlike Thunderhead, or Riptide, there is a new twist. Instead of one team on a treasure hunt, we end up with three in competition. You see, Maxwell Broadbent has accumulated half a billion dollars of treasure. Rather than leave it to his underachieving sons outright, he decides to stash it in a lost Mayan city. This way, the sons will have to work together to earn the money. With greed in their eyes, the sons are off to race to find the treasure, and not even close to any cooperation.

The Codex refers to an ancient manuscript of Mayan medicine. It is potentially the single most valuable treasure of the collection. This ancient pharmaceutical tome has potential to revolutionize modern medicine with hundreds of new drugs from the rainforest that are unknown in current times.

As the adventure progresses, there are plenty of twists and turns, as well as some surprises as we head further into the jungle. The Codex is well written and progresses at near breakneck speed for the entire novel. There is also plenty of symbolism that adds to the overall richness of the novel.

If you've enjoyed Preston's (and Child's) previous novels, then The Codex certainly fits in well with them. If you haven't taken the opportunity yet, then I highly recommend them. While the solo efforts are non sequential, the coauthored ones are easier to enjoy in order.

Overall Grade: A


Also Reviewed:
Thunderhead
Mount Dragon

Thunderhead

The writing duo of Preston and Childs has a whole series of novels that are real page turners, and redefine the thriller category in their attention to detail. Previously, we looked at Mount Dragon. Since that novel, I have been looking forward to reading another by them. Today we look at Thunderhead, and it is also excellent.

Thunderhead focuses on a young archaeologist, Nora Kelly. She is stalled in her career, and parentless. Both her personal, and professional lives are overcomplicated and going nowhere fast. A mysterious letter arrives from her deceased father, also an archaeologist. He may have discovered a secret city of the Anasazi Indians known as Quivira. This is perhaps the famed "City of Gold" that the Spanish explorers of yesteryear sought, and has the potential to be the greatest find in all of American archaeology.

Faster than we can say petroglyph, Kelly finds herself leading an expedition into the Utah badlands by the "four corners" region of the American Southwest. While the account is fictional, it is sprinkled with a hefty serving of authentic archaeological details. The prose is also excellently written, and reads quite smoothly. The characters are also quite believable, each with an ego the size of Texas.

As in their previous novels, what starts as a routine matter, goes awry in every direction. What begins as a quest ends as a desperate test of survival. There are more than enough plot twists and turns to keep you riveted to the novel. Be warned, you may forgo sleep and other basic biological needs to finish Thunderhead as soon as possible.

I enjoyed this novel very much. I have seen the petroglyphs of the Anasazi Indians firsthand in my travels, and I found most of the novel quite believable. If you want to delve into a novel that takes you on a journey of discovery, then Thunderhead is for you.

Overall Grade: A

Also reviewed by these authors:

The Codex

Mount Dragon

Mount Dragon

Looking for a great thriller from the duo that brought us Relic? This novel focuses on "Mount Dragon," a fictitious Level 5 biohazard facility set in the New Mexico desert, close to where the first atomic bomb tests were conducted. The principal character is Guy Carson, a scientist that specializes in genetics. The plot focuses around his attempt to cure a scourge of mankind- the influenza virus. Set against a back drop of the badlands of the desert, the authors have managed to create a thriller of large proportions. It not only works as a biothriller, but also as a cyberthriller, and a wilderness survival novel. This is all wrapped around a cautionary tale of genetic reengineering and the power that man has its disposal currently. Even though the novel came out in 1996, it's message is still contemporary today. I can recommend Mount Dragon to thriller readers without reservation.

Overall Grade: A

Also Reviewed:
The Codex
Thunderhead