Book Review

Right now, I'm currently reading a book called Still Life with Crows. It's one of a series of books by authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.  In most of the stories these guys write, they feature an eccentric FBI agent named Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast.

The novel Still Life with Crows is about a series of murders in a small Kansas town called Medicine Creek. The townspeople believe it may be what they call the Curse of the 45s. According to the story, in the town there was a brutal massacre of Indians and soldiers and one of the soldiers had his feet cut off and was scalped. So now there are murders and the FBI has been brought in and the townspeople don't like the knowledge of an FBI agent poking around making accusations that the killer may be one of them.

The rating for this is 5 out of 5 stars. It's a little slow in the beginning, but give it time to get good, I haven't finished it yet, but so far what I've read, I love it!




Cabinet of Curiosities
This book has, once again, Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast is in it. In this novel, he is working with a New York History Museum employee named Nora Kelly to investigate a series of murders going back 130 years. The story has it that in the late 1900s there was a scientist who believed that a large group of nerves attached to the spinal cord could extend human life, so he decided to start kidnapping people and removing their spines to get at this special group of nerves in a selfish attempt at extending his own life. In the end, Nora Kelly's fiancee, a reporter named William Smithback, is kidnapped and his spine is almost removed but Nora is able to get him out with the help of the eccentric FBI agent.

I give this book 2 out of 5 stars, it's sort of boring.

The Book of the Dead.
In this book, Special Agent Pendergast is mistaken for his criminal brother Diogenes and is mistakenly put into the maximum security ward at a federal prison. To break him out, his friend and colleague, NYPD Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta must go undercover to break him out. This story revolves around a tomb found in the New York Museum of Natural History and the supposed "curse" surrounding it. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars, it's interesting, and like most books, it can be boring sometimes and starts out boring, but I assure you it's very good. This book is one of a series of books featuring the strange FBI agent.

The Wheel of Darkness
In this book, Special Agent Pendergast and his ward Constance Greene are studying with Buddhist monks in Tibet. The monks talk of an artifact that has been stolen from them, something called a mandala, which is a Buddhist piece of art. The pursuit of this item takes him through China, London and Rome, and then finds him and his ward on a cruise ship called The Brittania which is headed for New York. Since the mandala has evil powers, whoever comes in to contact with it suddenly changes. The special agent comes into contact with it by mistake and suddenly is different, he only cares about himself and thinks humans are pathetic and should be wiped off the face of the planet. I give this book 4 out 5 stars, it's interesting, it has it's boring parts, but the action in the story compensates for it.

Cemetery Dance
In this story, New York History Museum archaeologist and her boyfriend, reporter William Smithback are celebrating their first anniversary. She goes out to get a cake to celebrate only to return home and find her boyfriend slashed to death. The police are called in and are convinced it's some  psycho nut out there, and as the story goes, the Special Agent and her work together and discover it's voodoo at work here, especially in the neighborhood of Inwood and Inwood Hill Park


I give this one 3 out of 5 stars, it has its interesting parts, but was not overly interesting

Fever Dream
This is yet another story involving the strange agent, figuratively. He thinks back on the time he and his wife were big game hunting in Africa. While there, his wife Helen is dragged away by a lion and mauled to death. Years later, Pendergast in convinced his wife's death was no accident. His little investigation takes him to the areas of the Mason Dixon Line, down in the south. You also find out that before he was an FBI agent, he worked for the New Orleans Police Dept. His late wife Helen was trying to discover a cure for neurological diseases, with her brother and a team of pharmaceuticals were trying to discover how to stop it and when the assignment began going downhill, she was going to expose the project but was killed to be silenced.

I give this one 5 out of stars, I love it, it was a little boring in the beginning but the action compensates for it.