I feel like all my reviews for the Pendergast series are starting to sound the same, I'm gushing as if in love about how fantastic the books are but its still true, this story is phenomenal and it makes you want to read another and another, this could easily have thirty volumes and I would still want to read them all, as usual this book reads smooth as silk while the action cuts like a knife.The Book of The Dead is the standard great stuff that one would expect from the insightful and intelligent duo, their stories breathe a life of their own and to me they feel different than other novels. Our world is filled with books, one can find them everywhere but whenever I read a Pendergast novel I feel as if I was holding something of heft and value, there is knowledge in these pages; ancient cultures, science, architecture, folklore and mysticism, curses, artifacts and it all sounds real enough to touch and some of it is but I especially adore all the breathtaking characters both good and bad and some in-between, in my opinion they are invaluable to the books. I guess they speak to me, true love haha... Pendergast lives in my mind beyond the pages of the book, that's how great he is.The third in the Diogenes Pendergast trilogy and seventh in the Aloysius Pendergast series ( I highly recommend starting with Relic, Pendergast#1) story continues on the wild hunt to catch and expose the elusive Diogenes who is conveniently presumed to be dead by everyone but the small circle of our heroes. The Queen of Narnia, The Heart of Eternity, The Indigo Ghost, Ultima Thule, The Fourth of July, The Zanzibar Green and of course Lucifer's Heart, all precious diamonds that were stole in the last installment are destroyed by Diogenes and arrive pulverized into a rainbow colored snow to the museum as a final act of madness and show of power. The previous book was simply fantastic and it exposed Diogenes' identity but only to the reader, the entire museum still has no idea that not only is Diogenes alive but his secret identity is walking right under their noses. To make matters worse, Aloysius Pendergast is in a top security prison and everyone that has always been jealous of him is gunning for the guy to go down, he deals with that brilliantly, boy that was fun! Even though Aloysius is locked up he is the only one who can match up against his evil and twisted genius of a brother, their journey takes them half way through the globe and back.My personal favorite part of the tale was the prison sequence, well pretty much all of it, I don't want to spoil anything but what happens to Pendergast in the prison is nuts. I read all the parts while holding my breath, some I had to re-read because they were simply too good to only read once. Ingenious and stunning, no deus-ex machina way out of this puppy! Lots of stuff happens, there is also the museum exhibit with a tomb that appears to be cursed, madness and mayhem breaks out as usual, lovers of museum thrillers will have a ball with the Tomb of Senef and those who love Pendergast will gobble up everything he does and says. I was finally impressed with Constance, I never really gave her much thought before but through this book she became another strong contender for future stories and my dear Vincent D'Agosta, he was wonderful as was Laura Hayward. For some reason Laura Linney ( the actress) kept popping into my head when Hayward's scenes came up, she was something, the woman can hold her own.This was such a tremendous journey with the two brothers that I'm not sad to see it over because I'm really looking forward to the next chapter, the next book sounds quite potent and meaty and I might need a bit of a break to let my brain prepare for another greatness of Preston and Child. I don't read them back to back on purpose as much as I really want to, after all it's not good to eat dessert three times a day, same with books, I save the good stuff to be savored when I'm really in the mood for greatness.- Kasia S.
Warning: I tend to enjoy books in a series more and more when I've developed a "relationship" with the characters. This may not be the best written book in the series, but it feels like it to me because it is so true to the characters.Raise your hand if you really think a detective can be as near-omniscient as Sherlock Holmes. Uh huh! I didn’t think so. Now, that being said, if you still enjoy suspending your disbelief enough to enjoy the improbable mastery of minutiae that Arthur Conan Doyle ascribed to Holmes, you would probably enjoy the Pendergast novels of Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston. Sadly, I’m not the first to make this comparison. Some of the dust jackets of the hardbound versions of these novels compare Special F.B.I. Agent Pendergast and the Consulting Detective known as Holmes. The dust jackets also compare Pendergast’s master criminal brother, Diogenes, with Sherlock’s smarter brother, Mycroft.Indeed, without unleashing a full-blown spoiler, let’s just say that there is a scene in The Book of the Dead that is eerily similar (with a few vital differences) to a certain incident at Reichenbach Falls in the Holmes canon. And how about all of those wonderful disguises used by both Aloysius and Diogenes Pendergast?! Aren’t those sort of the Holmesian stock-in-trade?Frankly, if I had to believe the martial arts prowess demonstrated in one scene combined with the improbable escape in another, I would have exiled Child and Preston from the Wilsonian Library long ago. However, it isn’t so much the verisimilitude of the plots that work for me as the atmosphere these books create. Although they are clearly set in the latter part of the 20th century or first part of this century, they have atmospherics redolent of medieval Italy, antebellum U.S., the Napoleonic Era, and ancient Egypt. Child and Preston have an amazing ability to intertwine history and mystery within a modern conundrum. Not content with locked room mysteries, they insist on locked museum and locked prison mysteries, in spite of high-tech surveillance equipment and fail-safe procedures. Ancient artifacts and legends are juxtaposed against surprisingly modern technologies and methodologies.Most amazing to me in this novel was an introspective journey taken by Agent Pendergast at a critical point in the plot. The discipline in building and deconstructing a mental edifice in which to store one’s memory was remarkable. For the purposes of the novel, it was an amazing way to handle exposition of the plot without resorting to a hokey dialogue. It was as suspenseful as many of the action scenes.Speaking of “exposition” of the plot, there is also a lot of unveiling of character backgrounds and motivations, as well as a horrifying revelation at or near the end. There is a marvelous interplay between loyalty and betrayal played off between the various ongoing relationships we have seen developing in the course of the series, as well as the new one developing in this book. It may well be because of my interesting in the Ancient Near East in general and in Egyptology in specific that I found this book more satisfying than usual, but I think this may have been the best yet.
What do You think about The Book Of The Dead (2006)?
Agent Pendergast is in jail falsely accused of murder and there are dastardly deeds being executed by his brother. ..but Aloysius is not the only brilliant mind in New York... and when his friends organise to break him out .... well, you will just have to read it to find out how that happens....His brother, Diogenes spends years planning an evil plot centred around the museum and he also tries to break Constance, by gaining her trust then seducing her..Twisting story threads spinning faster snd faster!!Loving the calming influence of Viola ..
—Jenny Delandro
I was happy to discover Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs because now I have a whole new series of books to read. I'm about halfway through their books and loved every one of them so far. Spoilers below...I admit that as much as I love their books, the Diogenes trilogy are my least favorites because I don't like having to put up with the same killer through three books...in the same way I didn't like that CSI had that recurring serial killer character throughout this whole 2011 seasson---I turned it off except to watch the last episode. Creepy serial killers are annoying.Reading this book, I looked forward to seeing the last of Diogenes. First of all I think it's a bit unbelievable that he went through so much time and money to plan this revenge based on "The Event." I was also disappointed that we were cheated out of the last encounter between Constance and Diogenes and also there was no satisfying confrontation between Diogenes and Aloysius. So ok, who wants to bet that Diogenes ISN'T dead? Darn darn darn....which means we'll probably have to meet him again. What I DO like about Preston/Childs books are the archaelogical themes and the other recurring characters (everyone of them except, of course, Diogenes). Does anyone else see a similarity between Constance Green and Lisbeth Salander of "The Girl Who..." books? We love these strong mysterious women, don't we? Same way I have a girl crush on Kalinda of "The Good Wife."
—Colleen Toyama
I normally never buy NY Times bestsellers, as it's usually the morons of America that cause the shittiest books ever written to end up on this list. The Book of the Dead was an exception I made. This time American readers got it RIGHT! I just finished this book and I'm still reeling. This book is the way a thriller/myster should be written. It's full of complex, well-developed characters, it has an evil genius (part Hannibal Lecter, part Sideshow Bob) conspiring to ruin lives, a cooped-up mysterious girl living in a NYC mansion, seduction, explosions, hypnosis, prison escapes, murders, light shows, ancietnt Egyptian curses, a final showdown on a FRICKIN VOLCANO in Italy, AND A BOMBSHELL ENDING! Christ, this book RULES! -- and it's all written in such a fast-paced way that you NEVER get bored. Extra bonuses?1) You can NEVER predict anything. Any half-wit could have predicted the ending of The Da Vinci Code, and elements of other great thrillers like Red Dragon and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo also have predictable parts. Not this one. The writers are too smart for you, and they stay 10 steps ahead at all times. 2) The two main characters KICK ASS. The evil genius isn't just bad, he's a meniachal nut-case that you almost have to admire for his psychotic brilliance. His brother, the equally brilliant FBI agent, gets his ass kicked just enough to make him believable, but not a wussy. ROCK ON. 3) I didn't even know until half way through the book that it's the most recent in a series. They give away nothing about the other books, so I can go back to number one and start reading without knowing what happened. WOOHOO! 4) Most importantly, this book isn't just a story. When a book is just a story, I get driven nuts. Good authors, like these ones, include other shit in their books because they're SMART and they know how to keep a reader interested. This book will have you googling shit, looking for places on maps, trying to find out more information about historical figures, downloading classical musicians you'd never ever heard of, and checking up on Oscar Wilde quotes, etc. THIS, to me, is what makes a novel great: elements of intelligence, and not just a stupid story. Think I'm wrong? Uhhh, two words for you: Ken Follet. Here are some more: A.S. Byatt. William Styron. Margaret Atwood. I can keep this up all day. Anyway, AWESOME READ, am SO going to read this entire series. ROCK AND ROLL!!
—La Petite Américaine
