Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child has been putting out more works the Pendergast series, staring FBI Agent Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast. They recently concluded the Gideon Crew series, which I, like others, weren’t too satisfied with. And they have launched a new series using characters from the Pendergast series.
So let’s first look at the Pendergast series. If you aren’t familiar with the character, please read the previous posting in the series. In general, he is a very unusual FBI agent. Independently wealthy, he takes on the cases that interest him, often getting in trouble with higher-ups. He comes out okay, which means there was someone shielding him from issues. We finally learned who it was that was doing this, but in a recent book, this individual was killed. So his future in the agency seems at risk.
In Verses for the Dead, we see the results of this. There is a strange serial killer operating in Miami, who is killing girls by hacking out their hearts, and leaving them at graves. A new agent in charge for the New York FBI office has his sights on Pendergast, and wants to get rid of him (while hoping to advance his own career). And so he saddles Pendergast with a new junior partner: Agent Coldmoon.
Yes, Pendergast succeeds in stopping the killer. And in the meantime makes a new ally of Coldmoon, and despite issues, impresses the AIC. I thought it good that Preston & Child didn’t make the AIC a stereotypical hard-ass. He learns to respect Pendergast’s methods, and at the end allows Pendergast to continue as he has.
On a personal note, living in South Florida, I enjoyed the use of the area for this novel. And as I understand that one of the authors also lives in the area, that its depiction was pretty accurate (though I know some changes had to be made).
The next novel, Crooked River, comes out early next year. It brings Pendergast back to Florida, this time to the Gulf Coast. Surprisingly, from the early blurb, Agent Coldmoon is also back as well. So it will be interesting how this works out. Will Coldmoon become Pendergast’s more or less partner? Also, in Verses for the Dead, we met a local report named Roger Smithback. Might he also return in this story?
Now, Preston & Child have launched a new series starting with Old Bones. Referred to as the first in the Nora Kelly series, I have to be snarky and note that Nora Kelly already has a novel: Thunderhead that introduced her! In that novel she was introduced and later married Bill Smithback (Roger’s brother). She helped out Pendergast in a few novels before Bill was killed and she disappeared from the series. She seems to have returned to the Southwest, again working as an archaeologist. In the new book, she is approached by someone with new information on the Donner Party and information on a previously unknown camp of the party.
The Donner Party is a real part of history: a wagon train that got stuck in the mountains of California in winter and resorted to cannibalism! But this new camp is fictional. While working on this dig, Kelly discovers that there are other, sinister groups also after the find. Coming into the story is Corrie Swanson, who was a secondary character in the Pendergast series. We last saw her in White Fire, working on her senior thesis. Since then, she has joined the FBI and is now a junior agent.
What I am hoping is that this won’t just be a Nora Kelly series, but a Nora/Corrie series, which I think will be interesting. Hopefully this will be more successful than the Gideon Crews series. I’m looking forward to this series plus the next Pendergast novel. Hope others are as well.
