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Summary
Summary
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A consistently exciting and never predictable series."- -Associated Press
When Grace Ozmian, the beautiful and reckless daughter of a wealthy tech billionaire, first goes missing, the NYPD assumes she has simply sped off on another wild adventure. Until the young woman's body is discovered in an abandoned warehouse in Queens, the head nowhere to be found.
Lieutenant CDS Vincent D'Agosta quickly takes the lead. He knows his investigation will attract fierce scrutiny, so D'Agosta is delighted when FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast shows up at the crime scene assigned to the case. "I feel rather like Brer Rabbit being thrown into the briar patch," Pendergast tells D'Agosta, "because I have found you here, in charge. Just like when we first met, back at the Museum of Natural History."
But neither Pendergast nor D'Agosta are prepared for what lies ahead. A diabolical presence is haunting the greater metropolitan area, and Grace Ozmian was only the first of many victims to be murdered . . . and decapitated. Worse still, there's something unique to the city itself that has attracted the evil eye of the killer.
As mass hysteria sets in, Pendergast and D'Agosta find themselves in the crosshairs of an opponent who has threatened the very lifeblood of the city. It'll take all of Pendergast's skill to unmask this most dangerous foe-let alone survive to tell the tale.
Author Notes
Douglas Jerome Preston was born on May 20, 1956 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He received a B.A. in English literature from Pomona College in 1978. His career began at the American Museum of Natural History, where he worked as an editor and writer from 1978 to 1985. He also was a lecturer in English at Princeton University.
He became a full-time writer of both fiction and nonfiction books in 1986. Many of his fiction works are co-written with Lincoln Child including Relic, Riptide, Thunderhead, The Wheel of Darkness, Cemetery Dance, and Gideon's Corpse. His nonfiction works include Dinosaurs in the Attic; Cities of Gold: A Journey Across the American Southwest in Pursuit of Coronado; Talking to the Ground; and The Royal Road. He has written for numerous magazines including The New Yorker; Natural History; Harper's; Smithsonian; National Geographic; and Travel and Leisure. He became a New York Times Best Selling author with his titles Two Graves and Crimson Shores which he co-wrote with Lincoln Child, and his titles White Fire, The Lost Island Blue Labyrinth and The Lost City of the Monkey God.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Why would a killer decapitate his victims? That's one of the puzzles Preston and Child pose for their eccentric FBI agent with expensive tastes, Aloysius Pendergast, and his loyal NYPD ally, Lt. Cmdr. Vincent D'Agosta, in the lackluster 17th entry in this bestselling series (after 2016's The Obsidian Chamber). In Kew Gardens, Queens, two boys stumble on a headless woman in a garage. Fingerprinting identifies the body as that of Grace Ozmian, the missing 23-year-old daughter of tech billionaire Anton Ozmian. Before much traction can be made on Grace's case, more people are murdered and decapitated, including a prosecutor turned mob lawyer and a Russian oligarch. There's no obvious motive for the killings, and D'Agosta feels pressure from New York City's mayor to come up with answers. Though the minimization of Pendergast's complex backstory makes this entry more accessible to newcomers, the authors fail to generate their usual high level of suspense. The climax will strike fans as too familiar. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Preston and Child's (The Obsidian Chamber, 2016, etc.) eccentric FBI special agent A.X.L. Pendergast is still on his boss's bad side, which means his next assignment is to aid in what seems to be a routine, albeit bloody, New York City murder investigation.The victim is Grace Ozmian, a tech billionaire's daughter, and she's been decapitated. She was a coke-fueled party girl, and her father has a reputation as "a world class prick," so there should be plenty of suspects. Then, the killer soon to be known as the Decapitator takes more victims: a shady mob lawyer; a married couple scamming people with distressed mortgages; and, oddly, a Nigerian woman who had won the Nobel Peace Prize. Donning his handmade John Lobb shoes and strapping on a Les Baer 1911 Colt .45, Pendergast joins Lt. Cmdr. Detective Squad Vincent D'Agosta, a regular cohort, in the investigation. Interference comes from a believably sketched reporter with the WASPy name of Harriman, credentialed by Choate and Dartmouth, who's attempting to resurrect his career with a tabloid column. Series newcomers may stumble over the minimal back story provided on the brilliant loner that is Pendergast, all pale skin and gaunt frame, and might be somewhat confused by his Riverside Drive mansion, three apartments in the Dakota, and vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith driven by a taciturn factotum named Proctor. Set in the weeks before Christmas, the book has a nice sense of chilly city winds and snow-piled streets, but the atmosphere grows far more foreboding when Pendergast tracks the killer to an abandoned psychiatric hospital on Long Island.One of the best in the seriestense and tightly wound, with death relentlessly circling, stalking, lurking behind every shadow. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
After a lengthy sojourn to far-flung locales in previous novels in this popular series, FBI special agent Aloysius Pendergast finally returns to New York City, where he quickly becomes embroiled in a murder case involving the daughter of a billionaire tech innovator. Because it's an NYPD case, Pendergast teams up with his old friend Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta, who hasn't had a major appearance in the series in a few years (and it's very nice to have him back). Well, soon enough, what appears to be a lone homicide is revealed to be a small part of a much bigger picture, and Pendergast and D'Agosta are in grave danger. As always, the authors have crafted a story that is almost impossible to pull away from, and their prose is as elegant as fans have come to expect. Pendergast continues to be one of thrillerdom's most exciting and intriguing series leads, and the series remains among the most reliable in the genre.--Pitt, David Copyright 2017 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In his 17th outing (after The Obsidian Chamber), FBI special agent Aloysius P-endergast, along with his friend NYPD Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta, tackles yet another twisted, multiple-murder case but this time featuring horrifying decapitations. Grace Ozmian, daughter of a high-tech billionaire, is the first to be killed, but unlike her successor victims, her head was apparently removed from her corpse more than 24 hours after her death. As the subsequent bodies (and severed heads) pile up, the pot is further stirred by local reporter Bryce -Harriman, who manages to stoke fear and panic in New York City, eventually bringing out a range of demonstrators and protesters, from the violent to the religious, the latter of whom stage a modern "Bonfire of the Vanities" in Central Park to expiate the city of its sins. All of which puts extreme pressure on the police and the FBI to solve the case, and pronto. VERDICT Fans of the "Pendergast" series will be delighted with this latest romp and its careful plotting and suspense should appeal to mystery fans generally as well. The sensational details don't interfere at all with its plausibility and stylishness. [See Prepub Alert, 7/24/17.]-Vicki Gregory, Sch. of Information, Univ. of South Florida, Tampa © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.