Valyruh’s #CBR4 Review #40: Cold Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

This latest in the Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast series by Preston and Child is a thrilling rollercoaster of a ride, starting in the desolate moors of Scotland where a critically-injured Pendergast is sinking fast into quicksand as his murderer looks on, to an amazing and deadly cat-and-mouse chase on board a yacht, and ending in New York City’s Central Park in a hail of gunfire.

The authors bring back some of their –and my–favorite characters from earlier novels in the long-running series, including Pendergast’s enigmatic ward Constance Green, his personal NYC cop Vincent D’Agosta, and the long-simmering mystery of Pendergast’s long-dead—or is she?–wife Helen.

This plot has nothing to do with a new FBI case. The story is entirely personal—thus the title—as we follow Pendergast’s obsessed investigation—against all odds–into his wife’s death a decade earlier, and discover that her life and that of her brother, the infamous Judson Esterhazy, is shrouded in a sinister mystery.  The plot thickens with each new revelation, the bad guys multiply, the torture scenes are gut-wrenching, and all doesn’t end well. Indeed, Preston and Child give us the perfect cliff-hanger.

That said, I can’t wait for the next in the series, not due out until the end of 2012. If Preston and Child would put their less-successful Gideon series to rest and move more quickly on the next Pendergast novel, their readers would be most grateful.