Pendergast Is Back!

Title:  Blue Labyrinth 

Authors:  Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Publisher:  Grand Central Publishing 11/11/14

Every year, I have a 'must read' on my list.  The new Pendergast by Preston & Child.   Now this year, they did something a little sneaky.  They gave away a free preview of 11 chapters on Amazon - guaranteed to whet any reader's appetite for the whole thing.

I was lucky.  I got a review copy of the entire book from Netgalley and I simply devoured it.  And fair warning, I'm a hardcore Pendergast fan, so this review might get a little…embarrassingly gushy!

The opening is both simple and shocking.  Pendergast opens his front door to find someone from his past murdered on his doorstep.  He knows this is a message to him…but what's the message?  And from whom?  Thus begins a chase around the world, from sunny California to the slums of Brazil.  And the chase has a timeline - a timeline that could result in the life (or death) of someone the readers know and love.

Blue Labyrinth pulls no punches.  There are shocks around every turn.   While not every old character is back, D'Agosta, Margo and, of course, Constance play pivotal roles in this drama - oddly, perhaps more than Pendergast himself at times.

And, of course, history plays its role as well, as we learn the tale of a mysterious and dangerous elixir and the lives it destroyed.

To be honest, I felt a bit like the last two Pendergast books were a tiney bit lightweight - as though they were setting the reader up for something.  This book is that something.  It's a fast read.  It's dark, tense, and Constance gets righteously awesome.  She's been showing her strength more and more in the past books and in this one, she finally comes into her own - and she is glorious.

And of course Pendergast is still brilliant, quirky, and believe it or not he'll do a couple of things that show he's more human than he likes to be.  There are a couple of surprises here!

The simple fact is that Preston and Child, yet again, deliver.  An absolute five star read and highly recommended!