Naples Florida Weekly
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A thriller that spills over into the literary fiction genre

FLORIDA WRITERS



¦ “City of Endless Night” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Grand Central Publishing. 368 pages. Hardcover, $28.

¦ “City of Endless Night” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Grand Central Publishing. 368 pages. Hardcover, $28.

Now that one member of this writing team, Lincoln Child, has established a winter residence in Sarasota, I have the pleasure of reviewing their new book in this column. Though each author has published notable fiction as a solo writer, their jointly written Pendergast Novel series has perhaps yielded more bestsellers. This one is certainly a dazzler.

New York Police Department Lt. Vincent D’Agosta has been assigned to the case, a search for a tech tycoon’s missing daughter. But when her body is discovered — headless — in an abandoned warehouse, it becomes a gruesome murder investigation. D’Agosta is pleased to discover that genius FBI Special Agent Pendergast is also assigned to the case.

Preston, left, and Child

Preston, left, and Child

There is a ton of pressure to solve this horrible crime. Fortunately, both D’Agosta and the legendary Pendergast handle pressure well, though their styles are quite different. Much of the pleasure in this addictive novel is how the authors build such intriguing, distinctive major characters.

Things heat up as more headless victims turn up. Why this horrifying signature? What possible motive? Is there one murderer or a bunch of copycats? Are such heinous crimes a symptom of a diseased city?

 

 

The working out of the plot, and the series of beheadings, requires the efforts of many additional law enforcement professionals. The authors handle these subordinate figures well, providing just enough individuality for each so they don’t seem like merely walk-on parts.

The FBI and NYPD are not the only investigative forces at work. New York Post reporter Bryce Harrington, planning a long uptick in his career as the person who reveals the “decapitator,” stirs things up with an emphasis on how the 1 percent (the phenomenally rich and privileged New Yorkers) exploits the 99 percent. Maybe the motive — and the city’s disease — are connected to this huge imbalance of power. Maybe someone is righting the scales by bringing down the powerful. Maybe vengeance drives this series of crimes.

One thing the 1 percenters have in common is the protection of the latest and greatest of security systems. Their money buys them immunity — or at least it should. The victims, however, include those whose lavish systems fail. Is someone on the inside — a security company staffer — behind the murders?

A former Jesuit priest has another understanding of the city’s illness and hopes to put together a spiritual solution.

The authors dangle a wide range of possibilities, but only one is going to be the right one. It is the expectation that Pendergast will figure it out, even though physically he seems a shadow of his former self. And when he does, the resolution becomes a mano-a-mano confrontation that will keep readers breathless through a long, riveting and super-suspenseful stretch of the book.

Special Agent Pendergast is a magnificent creation, and we can only hope that Preston and Child keep him in play for a long, long time. This is great thriller genre fiction that spills over into the literary fiction world with aplomb. Welcome to Florida, Mr. Child.

About the authors

The thrillers of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child “stand head and shoulders above their rivals” (Publishers Weekly). Their “Relic” and “The Cabinet of Curiosities” were chosen by readers in a National Public Radio poll as being among the 100 best thrillers ever written, and “Relic” was made into a No. 1 office hit movie. They are coauthors of the famed Pendergast series, and their recent novels include “Fever Dream,” “Cold Vengeance,” “Two Graves” and “Gideon’s Corpse.”

In addition to his novels, Mr. Preston writes about archaeology for the New Yorker and Smithsonian magazines. Mr. Child is a former book editor who has published five novels of his own, including the huge best-seller “Deep Storm.”

Readers can sign up for The Pendergast File, a monthly “strangely entertaining note” from the authors, at www.PrestonChild.com. They also welcome visitors to their alarmingly active Facebook page, where they post regularly. ¦

— Phil Jason, Ph. D., United States Naval Academy professor emeritus of English, is a poet, critic and freelance writer with 20 books to his credit, including several studies of war literature and a creative writing text.

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