Angel of vengeance

Preston and Child return again to the wonderful world of Aloysius Pendergast and Constance Greene in this absolutely perfect thriller. Pendergast, an FBI special agent with (shall we say) a unique investigative method, and Greene, who was introduced way back when as Pendergast's ward but has become something altogether more special to him, take one last run at the notorious serial killer Enoch Leng. But this is no ordinary good guys vs. bad guy story. Anybody can write one of those, but only Preston and Child can write a Pendergast novel. For starters, the book, like its immediate predecessors, is set in an alternate time line from the earlier novels in the series; characters who were dead in that time line are alive again in this one, which makes for a rather surreal experience for readers who know what happened to these characters in previous tales. The story itself is less about catching a serial killer as it is about the unique relationship between the two protagonists: Greene's rage is directed at Leng, but threatens to consume her, and Pendergast is desperate to make sure that doesn't happen. You will rarely see two characters as complex and compelling as these two, and you will rarely see a series as consistently well written as this one.

The tedious 22nd installment of Preston and Child's series featuring paranormal FBI investigator Aloysius Pendergast (after The Cabinet of Dr. Leng) gets tangled in convoluted series lore. Pendergast has used a dimensional portal to follow his ward, Constance Greene, to an alternate version of 1880 New York City, where they hope to protect Constance's siblings from sadistic doctor Enoch Leng, who is prepared to kill them in his pursuit of Constance's life-extending formula. Pendergast's evil twin brother, Diogenes, has followed the pair through the portal and begun cozying up to Leng--though he claims to Constance and his brother that it's all part of a master plan to bring down the doctor. Complicating matters, in the present, Leng is one of Pendergast's distant ancestors, which means that killing the doctor could also wipe out Pendergast and his brother. Preston and Child pepper the action with contrivances and tension-draining dei ex machina, all in service of a story that has long since jumped the shark. Clanging dialogue ("Consider it a raspberry pip under the dentures of the space-time continuum") doesn't help. Pendergast and his cohorts have seen better days. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME. (Aug.)