The Obsidian Chamber - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

   2016; 408 pages.  New Authors? : No & No.  Book 16 (out of 20) in the Pendergast series.  Genres : Suspense; Thriller.  Overall Rating: 5½*/10.

 

    The spacious mansion is eerily silent, and that suits Constance Greene just fine.  The butler Proctor, and the housekeeper Mrs. Trask, have both taken temporary leave from their duties.  Mrs. Trask is attending to a sick relative, Proctor left with no explanation, although his departure seems to have been a hasty and unplanned one.

 

    Of course, the owner of the mansion, who also serves as Constance’s guardian, the FBI special agent Aloysius Pendergast, is also missing and presumed dead.  He was swept out to sea while working on a case with Constance a couple weeks ago and undoubtedly drowned.  The FBI conducted an intensive search, but it came up empty, finding neither a dead nor alive Pendergast.

 

    Constance now wanders the mansion halls alone until Proctor and Mrs. Trask return.  She’s in no danger, the estate’s security system is incredibly thorough, and besides no visitors ever come calling.

 

    So it’s quite the shock when some secret admirer starts to woo her, leaving strange gifts for her like a book of love poetry, a feather, a bottle of champagne, and romantic notes.  How in the world did he get past all the security?  Outside of the servants, only Aloysius could do that, and he’s dead.  Even if somehow he survived, romancing just isn't something he would ever do.

 

    So if he’s not the mystery suitor, who else could it be?

 

What’s To Like...

    There are multiple storylines in The Obsidian Chamber to keep you turning the pages.  We start out with Proctor’s abrupt departure, with frequent cutaways to the wooing of Constance.  The equally important plot thread, Pendergast’s whereabouts, is then initiated.  It's not a spoiler to reveal that, since Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child have dubbed this the “Pendergast series” and there’s four more books after this one, which wouldn't work if Aloysius is a corpse.  After that, the last main plotline is introduced: the FBI’s investigation into the Pendergast's demise.

 

    As always, the action and plot twists begin immediately, here with a protracted, 68-page chase that starts at Pendergast’s mansion in Harlem and spans several continents.  I liked that its first stop was the fine city of Teterboro, New Jersey.  My company used to have an important customer there, and I once had to drive the New York and New Jersey thoroughfares to call on them, capped by a timely slam into the New York City 5 o’clock rush hour traffic.  It was quite the hair-raising experience.

 

    Preston & Child never skimp on a variety of exotic settings for these stories.  Here we mostly travel up and down the North American east coast, with brief stops in Europe, and southern Africa.  We are also treated to some Latin classical literature (the poems of Catullus), Afrikaans dialogue (quick, name any other book you’ve read that used that language), and conversational French, including several cusswords plus the esoteric insult “del glouton souduiant!”, for which I was unable to find a precise translation, but it will definitely land you in a fight.

 

    I liked the brief music reference to three extremely obscure, but real, classical composers: Ignaz Brull, whom I've actually listened to, Adolf von Henselt, and Friedrich Kiel.  The book’s title is first referenced at about 60%-Kindle, and plays an important role in the tale.  I finally learned what the initials in the protagonist’s name, A.X.L. Pendergast, stand for, although I’m sure that information was given in earlier books as well.

 

    The ending is so-so at best.  It accomplishes its basic task – Pendergast successfully rescues Constance, which of course was the obvious culmination.  I didn’t find it particularly exciting or twisty.  All the major characters live to see another day, and I was disappointed in how the fate of the main baddie was resolved.  Didn’t any of the good guys ever watch those Austin Powers movies?  Don’t they know what to do when you capture your main adversary?

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 2,561 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.97*/5, based on 14,884 ratings and 1,378 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Palapa (n.): an open-sided dwelling with a thatched roof made of palm leaves.

Others: Cilice (n.); Incunabula (n.).

 

Excerpts...

    “Mr. Longstreet, these men are clearly not stupid.”

    At this, Longstreet unfolded himself from his chair in a sort of easygoing way, then strolled to the front of the room.  “I’m sorry to be blunt, Agent Spann, but I believe this plan of yours will pretty much guarantee Pendergast’s death.”

    Spann stared at Longstreet.  “I respectfully disagree.  This is classic, exhaustively researched and tested SOP.”

    “Which is exactly why it will fail.”  (loc. 1497)

 

    The feeling of surrealness overwhelmed her again, seeing him sitting in a leather wing chair, smiling in domestic content as he removed a bottle of champagne from a silver ice bucket and poured two glasses, offering one to her.

    “Nineteen ninety-five Clos d’Ambonnay, by Krug,” said Diogenes, raising his glass and touching the rim to hers.

    “Good champagne is wasted on me.”

    “Only until you develop your taste.”  (loc. 3000)

 

DeJesus was a reliable man, but about as intelligent as a side of beef.  (loc. 1211)

    The writing is as always superb, but the storytelling is another matter.

 

    For starters, that opening chase scene is entertainingly quick-paced, but the timing involved in each stage of it is incredibly far-fetched.  I’d forgive that if it was important to the storyline, but it isn't.  Proctor is removed to a half-a-world-away locale, apparently for no other reason than to get him out of the house.

 

    The same letdown arises with the leadership of the FBI probe.  The guy officially in charge, Agent Spann, gets upstaged by a higher-up, Agent Longstreet.  I expected to see some departmental infighting throw spanners into the works, but no, Spann just fades into oblivion and Longstreet performs investigative miracles.

 

    I was shocked when Proctor, alone and in the wilds of a foreign country, brutally stabs one of the locals there, not once but twice, and based on no more than a suspicion that he’s legitimately withholding confidential customer information.  Really?  I expect the bad guys to engage in aggravated assaults, and they do, but not one of the heroes.

 

    Also, it must be nice to have both the FBI computer-geek team and Aloysius’s personal hacker buddy available and capable of tracking down shady business dealings and the whereabouts of anyone, at any place or time, no matter how encrypted that data might be.

 

    Lastly, there’s the matter of the main storyline itself, which in this series usually involves saving the world, solving a murder, stopping a monster, or capturing a psychopath.  Here, Pendergast is stalking his ward Constance, who *willingly* took off with someone else.  You couldn’t even make a kidnapping charge stick against the baddie, and any information about his misdeeds would never be allowed into a trial.

 

    Still, let’s keep things in perspective.  The Obsidian Chamber is the thirteenth book I’ve read in this series, and the first one that failed to thrill me.  It kind of felt like Preston & Child “mailed this one in”, but hey, they’re still batting 12-for-13, and that’s impressive.  The high Goodreads and Amazon ratings notwithstanding, it appears a lot of other reviewers were likewise disappointed in this book.  The big question is whether this was just an anomaly, or marks the beginning in the decline of the quality of this series.  We shall see.  The next book, City of Endless Night, is on my TBR shelf.

 

    5½ Stars.  One last vocabulary tidbit.  Around 40%-Kindle a nautical term comes up referring to a part of a ship’s deck: gunwale.  It’s not the first time I’ve come across it in a novel, but it’s not a word I’d ever used in conversation.  Mentally, I’ve always pronounced it “gun-whale”, but it turns out it rhymes with “tunnel”.  Funnily enough, when it crops up again a short time later, it is respelled, phonetically and incorrectly, as “gunnel”.  I'm now left wondering how many other words that I'm mispronouncing because I only run into them when reading.