Cold Vengeance

Cold Vengeance is Preston and Child's latest addition to the Pendergast series. It continues the story of Pendergast's hunt for his wife Helen. The book starts with Pendergsat being shot in the chest by his brother-in-law Judson Esterhazy. Esterhazy tells the police the shooting was a tragic hunting accident, but when he takes them to the shooting site, there is no body.

While this is taking place in Scotland, Constance (Pendergast's niece) is being moved to a mental institution after having claimed to have thrown her infant son off a moving boat. She is being housed in the same institution and secure room that her Great Aunt Cornelia was. Several other characters from previous books make reappearances: Corrie Swanson shows up at D'Agosta's office seeking Pendergast's whereabouts. He had an appointment with her and he missed it, something he has never done. D'Agosta knows nothing.

In Mississippi, a reporter is investigating the reappearance of the Brodie's - a couple who faked their own suicides and disappearance. The Brodie's are murdered shortly after an article appears in the local paper describing their escapades. Esterhazy thinks it may be something called the Covenant. A shadowy group he has had dealings with in the past. Esterhazy is not happy to hear the Pendergast may have survived the shooting and he hatches a plan to get back at Pendergast by using Constance.

Pendergast's search for his wife, whom he now believes is missing and not dead, takes him back to New York, a secret military institution and into the home of a Nazi hunter. Turns out that Helen ( and Esterhazy, her brother) are related to Wolfgang Faust - the "Dachau Doctor." The book contains the usual twists and turns and Pendergast's considerably skills are on display as usual. The story line leaves enough open ends that a sequel is certain.

What is not the same with this book ( and the previous one Fever Dream) is the delicious creepiness that accompanied the early books in the Pendergast series. I miss that.

But this is still a book worth reading, especially if you are a fan of Agent Pendergast.

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