Cold Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

While I get many more books than I can hope to read or review (at least at my snail-like pace), Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's books always move to the top of the pile, so I was excited when Cold Vengeance was released. The story picks up where Fever Dream left off. While that novel is a stand-alone, Preston and Child extend the story, with the focus being on the search for Pendergast's wife, whose death he thought he'd avenged in Fever Dream, but who might still be alive. Here's the synopsis:

Devastated by the discovery that his wife, Helen, was murdered, Special Agent Pendergast must have retribution. But revenge is not simple. As he stalks his wife's betrayers-a chase that takes him from the wild moors of Scotland to the bustling streets of New York City and the darkest bayous of Louisiana-he is also forced to dig further into Helen's past. And he is stunned to learn that Helen may have been a collaborator in her own murder.

Peeling back the layers of deception, Pendergast realizes that the conspiracy is deeper, goes back generations, and is more monstrous than he could have ever imagined-and everything he's believed, everything he's trusted, everything he's understood . . . may be a horrific lie.

As always, this is a book that you don't want to put down, with lots of plot twists along the way. Preston and Child introduce a new enemy organization that has the potential to be a dangerous enemy for Pendergast, much like the Guild in James Rollins' books. Corrie Swanson, a character from Still Life With Crows, has a part in this book, and it appears she might become a recurring character. As always, there are surprises and plenty of intrigue. One of the best parts of this book is tI like that the reader is seeing the human side of Pendergast. He has always been rather stiff, distant, and even cold, though unfailingly loyal to his friends. In Cold Vengeance, we see flashes of his vulnerability, though he remains the same character we've always known.

I sometimes felt the heroics and cleverness were just a bit too much. The story begins with a chess match-type scenario with Pendergast trying to outwit his enemy, and the two give us a heavy dose of "See how I've outwitted you!" "No, I knew you were going to do that, so I did this!" "Oh yeah? Well I knew you were going to know..." We are also treated to a couple of tired cliches in the opening chapters: 1) Leaving your enemy to die rather than finishing him off and, 2) Making an important revelation to the dying man since there's no way he'll get out of this one. While the character does offer an explanation later, it's a weak one,in my opinion. If a guy has time to reveal a deep secret to a dying man, he has time to put one more bullet in him. After these opening chapters, however, the plot smooths out and the book lives up to the series' usual high quality.

A word of warning: while the story does come to a resolution of sorts, the rug is immediately yanked out from under us, and we are left with major cliffhangers. This is very much an Empire Strikes Back story that leaves many things open for future novels. All in all, Cold Vengeance is a twist-filled thriller that promises to satisfy Pendergast fans.

The publisher provided a copy of this book for review.