BACK ON TRACK WITH A VENGEANCE

DANCE OF DEATH
By Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
451pp.
Warner Books. $25.95.

Reviewed by John Clark

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have written some of the best adventure yarns of the past ten years. Starting with Relic in 1995, they captured readers’ imaginations with a combination of interesting characters and “what if” plots. Brimstone, which was on my ten best list for 2004, strayed a bit from the tight plots and gradual building to a point where the reader was willing and able to suspend skepticism and plunge into the wildly improbable. I wondered if that was a sign of writer’s tiredness.

Have no fear. These two gentlemen are definitely back on track with Dance of Death. In fact they have added a twist or two that I particularly like, although some critics are grumbling that they are bad attempts at inside jokes. If you are a fan of Clive Cussler’s books you will recognize what I am talking about as you read Dance of Death.

When Brimstone ended, FBI Agent Aloysius Pendergast had been walled in and chained at the bottom of a series of caverns beneath an estate in Italy. Readers were left with the impression that he was dead. Dance of Death initially maintains that impression. The book opens with a college professor literally tearing his own face off as he dies a grotesque death in front of his horrified students. This death is the beginning of a twisted plot by Diogenes Pendergast, Aloysius’s deranged but brilliant brother, who has hated him since childhood. Diogenes, like Aloysius, is dead, killed in an auto accident many years ago. Or is he?

This book is built upon false impressions, masterfully woven. Neither Pendergast brother is dead, and the dance of death alluded to in the title describes the lethal ballet between them: Diogenes is systematically killing everyone close to his brother, taunting him with tarot cards announcing the next victim, while Pendergast tries to remain hidden yet is pressed to reach out to warn and protect the potential victims. Preston and Child have done something else in this book. They have returned much of the plot to the Museum of Natural History in New York, as well as bringing together most of the important characters from earlier books.

The romantic relationships between Lt. Vincent D’Agosta and Captain Laura Hayward, reporter Bill Smithback and his new wife Nora Kelly, and even the subdued but budding one between Agent Pendergast and Viola Maskelene all add depth and tension to the plot. You have to give your imagination time to worry about the health of these romances while you hold on for dear life and negotiate the varied plot twists.

By the end of the book, you feel wrung out by all the unexpected events, by people who are often not whom they appear to be—who are dead but aren’t—and by motives that aren’t as real as you are led to believe they are. All these elements give this book added flavor. Can Agent Pendergast and his friend Vincent outwit Diogenes before everyone Aloysius cares about is murdered in some gruesome manner? How will Agent Pendergast escape the web of criminal charges Diogenes has woven around him at the end of the book? Read it and find out, I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

I will note that the last page is worth the price of admission and sets you up to very much anticipate the next book. Expect an epic battle between brothers in the final entry in this series. 

 

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