The Tzer Island book blog features book reviews written by TChris, the blog's founder.  I hope the blog will help readers discover good books and avoid bad books.  I am a reader, not a book publicist.  This blog does not exist to promote particular books, authors, or publishers.  I therefore do not participate in "virtual book tours" or conduct author interviews.  You will find no contests or giveaways here.

The blog's nonexclusive focus is on literary/mainstream fiction, thriller/crime/spy novels, and science fiction.  While the reviews cover books old and new, in and out of print, the blog does try to direct attention to books that have been recently published.  Reviews of new (or newly reprinted) books generally appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Reviews of older books appear on occasional weekends.  Readers are invited and encouraged to comment.  See About Tzer Island for more information about this blog, its categorization of reviews, and its rating system.

Entries in Douglas Preston (7)

Monday
Nov092015

Crimson Shore by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Published by Grand Central Publishing on November 10, 2015

New York has been depressingly free of serial murders, but a stolen wine collection in New England gets Pendergast’s attention -- or, rather, the opportunity to earn a rare bottle of wine as a fee gets his investigative juices flowing. Of course, the investigation quickly reveals a more serious crime, one that inspires allusions to Poe. And of course, murders and mutilated corpses soon follow, giving Pendergast the chance to probe the kind of weirdness he relishes.

Constance Greene plays Watson to Pendergast’s Sherlock. I’m not sure what Constance sees in Pendergast (perhaps she admires his ability to move “like a snake” with “feline grace,” “more nimble than any bullfighter,” and with the “uncanny ability to move without sound”), but her burgeoning desire for him plays a key role in the story.

Also playing a role is the dark history of Massachusetts. Shipwrecks, economic downturns in the whaling industry, troubled race relations, and the Salem witch trials are among the historical tidbits that contribute to the plot. Local legends of witchcraft and ghosts of sailors lost at sea add a supernatural element that is customary in Pendergast novels.

Pendergast’s investigation introduces him to several residents in a small New England town. Those characters are crafted with the authors’ usual deft touch. As always, the story moves at a good pace, occasionally enlivened by fights and other action scenes.

Pendergast is a pretentious sun-of-a-gun and therefore not always the most likable of protagonists, but in Crimson Shore his pretensions are less overbearing than usual. I always like the prose and the plot in these novels more than I like Pendergast, but touches of humor soften his disagreeable nature during the novel’s first half.

Pendergast takes advantage of his ability to see into the past, a superpower disguised as meditation that has always seemed a little odd in these novels, although it is certainly a convenient way to solve crime. Shouldn’t Pendergast’s Sherlockian deductive ability be enough to carry the plot?

The story seems to reach a conclusion with nearly a third of the book remaining. At that point it branches off in a new and, I thought, less satisfying direction. That was a bit disappointing to me (it pushed the boundaries of credibility almost as much as Pendergast’s ability to see the past) but other readers may well have a different reaction.

The ending is unresolved and is clearly meant to set up the next novel, which always strikes me as a cheap way to sell more books. On the whole, I liked the first two-thirds of the story and I always enjoy the authors’ prose, but Crimson Shore isn’t one of my favorite entries in the series.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Monday
Nov102014

Blue Labyrinth by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Published by Grand Central Publishing on November 11, 2014

I have never been a fan of Pendergast although I enjoy the Pendergast novels. Pendergast is such a pretentious snob that I often find his literary company to be disagreeable. When, in Blue Labyrinth, Pendergast accuses others of being officious, I wonder if he owns a mirror. The novels, on the other hand, are carefully plotted, never dull, and often feature absorbing mysteries.

When Pendergast's dead son is deposited at his door, Pendergast feels no loss -- his son was "a sociopathic killer of the most dangerous type" -- but since the killers found his son when the FBI and CIA could not, Pendergast knows that his murderers are formidable. Why his son was killed, why there was a turquoise jewel in his son's stomach, and what message the killers meant to send by delivering the corpse to Pendergast are the mysteries that both Pendergast and the reader must solve.

A second storyline involves a murder at the Museum of Natural History. The murder seems to be linked to a murder that occurred in the late nineteenth century but the connection baffles Detective Vincent D'Agosta. He's not happy when Pendergast provides five minutes of assistance and then disappears.

About a third of the novel passes before the inevitable linkage of the two mysteries occurs. The mysteries force Pendergast to confront a dark secret in his ancestry. The motivation for the crimes turns out to be laughably implausible. Pendergast's ability to see the past televised in his mind while meditating is just silly. Some other aspects of the story also plummet off the edge of credibility but that's common in modern thrillers. Believable or not, they provide a foundation for the action that follows. The action scenes are pure fun.

The behind-the-scenes look at the Museum of Natural History is rich with detail, as are descriptions of the crime-controlled slums of Rio. The plot moves forward briskly. While I can't say I warmed up to Pendergast -- quite the opposite -- I enjoyed the story and got a kick out of the secondary characters.

RECOMMENDED

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