City of Endless Night - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

   2018; 374 pages.  Book 17 (out of 21) in the “Agent Pendergast” series.  New Author? : No, and No.  Genres : Suspense; Thriller.   Overall Rating: 8½/10.

 

    The body of a young women has been found in an abandoned garage in New York City, under a pile of leaves.  Well, that’s not so unusual, there are some rough neighborhoods there, and Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta knows this is one of them.

 

    Unfortunately, the young lady has been identified, and she’s a well-known, rich, young, spoiled socialite.  Great news fodder for the local tabloids.  That’s going to put a lot of pressure on the NYPD to solve this quickly, and in particularly on D’Agosta, who’s in charge of the investigation and has just arrived at the crime scene.

 

    He’s not particularly surprised when his friend, Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast also shows up.  Pendergast has some amazing deductive talents, and D’Agosta welcomes any help he can get.  Maybe it was a mob hit.  Maybe drugs were involved.

 

    Let’s just hope it’s not the work of a serial killer.  Because whoever did this also decapitated the corpse.  And took the severed head away for some unfathomable reason.

 

What’s To Like...

    If you like the idea of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child returning to the tried-and-true formula of FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast teaming up with Lieutenant Vinnie D’Agosta to solve a series of brutal murders, you’ll love City of Endless Night.  Connie Swanson is a no-show, and Constance Greene and Laura Hayward only make cameo appearances.

 

    It’s not a spoiler to reveal that a string of murders-by-decapitation follow the initial one described above.  Pendergast’s normally reliable Holmesian deductions are stymied by a seemingly lack of killing pattern, which opens the door to possible multiple and/or copycat murderers, or even random slayings just to blur the killer's motives.

 

    There are several secondary plotlines that bolster our protagonists’ sleuthing.  Tabloid reporter Bryce Harriman decries the lack of progress in the investigation, and comes up with a whodunit theory of his own, which even Pendergast has to admit has merit.  Harriman also coins the titular phrase “City of Endless Night” to describe a city terrified by a plethora of killings that the police seem to be unable to solve.  Meanwhile, an ex-Jesuit priest stirs the passions of the populace by reinventing the historical “Bonfire of the Vanities”.  I found it fascinating how Preston & Child smoothly blended both of those plot threads into the main storyline.

 

    As with any Pendergast thriller, the pacing is quick, plot twists abound, and our protagonists teeter on becoming the next victims.  At least one recurring character in the series fails to make it to the end of the book.  I liked that the perpetrator(s) are just as cunning and resourceful as our heroes.

    The chapters are short: 66 of them plus an epilogue to cover 374 pages.  The ending is 100 pages of excitement and thrills.  Pendergast finds himself being forced to play and badly outwitted in a deadly game where only an adjustment in his usual thought processes will keep him alive.  All of the plot threads are nicely tied up.  City of Endless Night is both a standalone novel and a part of a great series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 12,771 ratings and 1,287 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.07*/5, based on 18,763 ratings and 1,718 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Our private investigators have submitted a preliminary report on Harriman.”

    “Give me the short version.”

    “All reporters are of questionable character, so I’ll leave out the minor sins and peccadillos.  Aside from being a muckraking, ambulance-chasing, rumormongering, backstabbing journalist, the man is a straight arrow.  A preparatory school product who comes from old, old money—money that is petering out with his generation.  The bottom line is that he’s clean.  No prior convictions.  No drugs.”  (pg. 135)

 

    “We must understand the anomalies before we can understand the patterns in what followed.  Why, for example, did somebody take the head twenty-four hours after the girl was murdered?  Nobody seems troubled by this anymore, except for me.”

    “You really think it’s important?”

    “I think it’s vital.”  (pg. 237)

 

“It’s only hubris if I fail.” (Julius Caesar)  (pg. 258)

    The quibbles in City of Endless Night are minor.

 

    There’s a fair amount of cussing: 29 instances in the first 10% of the book.  I noted eight different cusswords utilized, including a couple of f-bombs and a sexual allusion.  Preston and Child will never be accused of penning a cozy murder-mystery novel.

 

    The character-building of Bryce Harriman is stereotypical, as shown in the first excerpt above.  Just once I’d like to see a tabloid reporter that turns out to be a valuable ally of a crime investigator.  Also, if you like the “is it natural or supernatural?” spin that Pendergast novels occasionally have, that’s totally absent here.  Lastly, dogs die.

 

    But I pick at nits.  City of Endless Night is a strong entry in the Agent Pendergast series, a real page-turner and a welcome rebound after what I considered a subpar previous offering, The Obsidian Chamber, and which is reviewed here.  But that was a rare exception to the fine books Preston & Child turn out.  I’ve been hooked on this series for several decades, and am still a half-dozen books away from being caught up.

 

    8½ Stars.  For those who think that the “Bonfire of the Vanities” scene is too outrageous to be believable, I once attended a “book/music/movie burning” here in the greater Phoenix area.  LPs, VHS tapes, and paperbacks were heaped into pile, battered by zealot wielding a sledgehammer, then put to the torch via a liberal helping of lighter fluid.  All in the name of the Jesus.  That was 30 years ago or so.  Today it's 2023, and we’re seeing an upsurge in book-banning.  A present-day “Bonfire of the Vanities” event seems to get more plausible each passing day.