Just something to fill the time. I had read the book that came right before this in the series, and I'm pretty sure I read Relic way back, but there have been several others in the interim - not sufficiently interested to acquire the others. Another popcorn book.

I sadly have read this all out of order. In spite of the author's note saying you can read them in any order they're right, this isn't one of them. I think I've read the third Diogenes book before this (years ago). And I definitely read book one so long ago I barely remember it.

In spite of all that, I really enjoyed this. Even though it's five hundred plus pages, it goes quickly. It opens with D'Agosta melancholic because he believes Pendergast is dead and he and Pendergast's ward, Constance, are trying to get ahead of a puzzle before something terrible happens.

There are several other plot lines, the biggest of which is Nora and Margo (other recurring characters) going toe to toe over a museum display of Native American masks.

Soon, D'Agosta learns Pendergast is alive and all of Pendergast's friends are being murdered. Laura (D'Agosta's police detective girlfriend) believes as does the FBI, that Pendergast is murdering his friends. In fact it's his psychopathic brother, Diogenes, who was supposed to be dead for decades.

It's an exciting cat and mouse and the writing duo knows how to hook you at chapter ends to keep you reading. Pendergast is a great character.

This book was the hardest book for me to put down in a while. The funny thing is I don't know exactly why that was. It doesn't strike me as a great book, but I found myself sneaking time to keep reading to get to the end in a way that I can't remember doing with another book in quite a while.

Anyone who reads this far into the series is probably at least somewhat bought into the Pendergast universe. This book feels like a bit of a love letter to the fans in that it revolves around the relationships Pendergast cultivated in the prior books and relies on your familiarity with those pasts to infuse some scenes with meaning beyond what is in these pages. While I am not generally a fan of such sappy ideas, it works in this book. It works because while these known relationships add gravitas, this book remains driven primarily by its own action-oriented plot rather than on some cloying sentimentality.

Diogenes is a worthy super villain, and other than his and Pendergast's preposterous general capability and competence, there aren't really any "unnatural" elements to this book (at least not that really matter to the plot).

Quite the page turner...but the whole thing with Viola was hard to swallow. It seemed out of character and forced.

Fantastic! Read it in a couple of days! One of the best so far. Can't wait to see what happens with the brothers. I actually think it is my favorite out of all of them so far. Fast paced, instense from the beginning to end! I highly recommend it!

Going through the Pendergast series by Douglas Preston and a Lincoln Child. Been a while since I read any of these, and I’ve missed out on the last few installments. Looking forward to catching up on the series.

After probably about a decade (and all the books I’ve read since) I’m absolutely struck by the clear sherlockian origins of Agent Pendergast, which apparently never really crossed my mind before. The series is exciting and over the top. The authors occasionally get things wrong (still have trouble getting through Reliquary - rickets indeed) but the out-of-practice anthropologist in me loves the attention to the field.

I’ve picked up the series here because I’ve read the installments previous quite a few times. I decided to skip ahead to the books I don’t remember as well and the ones I haven’t read yet.

So these are a bit of a guilty pleasure for me, I guess, but in starting the reread, I’m remembering why I enjoy these books so much to begin with. In short, the plot is exciting, the characters memorable, the science is flashy and a bit iffy. Oh, and the female characters in here are pretty damn awesome. I’m remembering why I wanted to be Margo Green or Nora Kelly when I grew up.

This is by far the best book in the entire Pendergast series. This is THE one to read!

Catching up on unread books. This one was less mystery and more thriller. Several cliffhangers. What happens next?