Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have been putting out more works the Pendergast series, staring FBI Agent Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast. And they have launched a new series using characters from the Pendergast series, now with two novels.
After the previous story set in South Florida, we get another story set in southwest Florida. Sanibel Island to be precise. Growing up in Naples, I am familiar with Sanibel, and have visited a couple of times in the past year or so. I was last there as a kid. (however it’s more than just a “few miles” to Naples)
Crooked River kicks off with a bizarre scene of new shoes washing up on shore. Lots and lots of shoes. Shoes with feet in them. Pendergast’s new boss persuades him to take on the case, and he brings along Constance. He’ll be the FBI presence in the investigation that is being headed by a Coast Guard officer. Pendergast tracks down Agent Coldmoon, who was relaxing in the Keys and recruits him to help him as his partner. To keep busy Constance starts investigating a ghost in the old house they are renting, but does get into the action in a big way toward the end.
Also, in Verses for the Dead, we met a local reporter named Roger Smithback, and he is back in Crooked River. He’s trying to investigate the case, but gets a little “sidetracked,” but does contribute some help.
But it’s clear there is more behind what’s going on. Pendergast sends an FBI resource to China to find the source but the resource is killed. When they identify one of the victims, Coldmoon is sent to Guatamala to figure out what happened to the person, and realizes there is more to this case. Thanks to a marine researcher, they track the shoes to a location in the panhandle. But who is behinds it all, and why is still a unknown. But it all comes to a head.
At the end, their agent-in-charge wants them to go to Savannah, Ga., to handle a new and bizarre case. Pendergast wants to head back to New York, and Coldmoon is heading to the Colorado field office. So will they go? See for yourself. The next book is Bloodless.
Now, as previously noted, Preston & Child have launched a new series starting with Nora Kelly and Corrie Swanson. Nora Kelly is an archaeologist operating in Santa Fe, and was introduced in the novel Thunderhead where she meet Bill Smithback. They married and she moved to New York, where she helped out Pendergast in a few novels before Bill was killed. She returned to the Southwest, again working as an archaeologist in Santa Fe.
Corrie Swanson was introduced in Still Life With Crows, where she met Pendergast in her hometown in Kansas as a high school student. He was able to get her out of that life, and she was a minor character in a few books, then decided to pursue a career as an FBI agent. She had a big part to play in White Fire, and has since graduated and is now a very junior FBI agent, assigned to the Albuquerque, N.M., office.
In Old Bones, Nora is approached by a historian with new information on the Donner party which gives details 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. There is also a possible hoard of stolen gold worth $20 million!
While this is going on, Corrie is investigating a bizarre case of grave robbing, and find other cases that link to it, including a disappearance of a young lady. The connections seem to point to one of the people who died as the Lost Camp, as all the victims are descendants of this person! Soon the group at the camp is plagued by issues, including two deaths, and Nora and Corrie have to figure out what is going on and who is behind it without getting killed themselves.
The next story is The Scorpion’s Tale. Here Corrie starts things off with a new case and soon pulls in Nora for help. A mummified body is found, and Corrie is investigating, but when she realizes there is more to it, she brings in Nora.
I hope they are able to do more with these two characters. They have to contend with the fact that FBI agents are often rotated to other offices, so who knows how long Corrie will stay where she is, plus they have to figure out how to get them to work together on a case. But this is a good series and should be better than the Gideon Cross series.
