The enormously creative minds of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have provided readers with dozens of complex and intriguing stories over the past several decades. Nothing, though, has shined as brilliantly as their most popular character, A. X. L. Pendergast.

Their latest novel, PENDERGAST, is a prequel of sorts set in the time period just before the first Pendergast novel, RELIC. The story takes place in New Orleans, where Pendergast is about to become the new partner of senior FBI Special Agent Dwight Chambers, who is approaching the end of his career. Chambers is still reeling from serious setbacks involving the loss of both his previous partner and his wife. As he returns to work following a period of grieving, he finds himself saddled with a new junior partner he must mentor.

"Preston and Child keep the surprises coming, and the revelations are unsettling and brilliant in their construct. The finale is wild and unpredictable with some truly shocking events that I did not see coming."

Prior to the action here, we are given a prologue set in 1989 where a funeral director has hired a bunch of local men to fill in as pallbearers for a funeral. Due to their intoxication, they mishandle the coffin. It falls awkwardly into the grave and pops open to reveal something shocking to all who are present. We then meet Proctor, who was just part of a heist and finds himself targeted by a mysterious person who tases him outside his home before abducting him.

August 1994 is when Chambers returns to work and meets his new partner and mentee. They are assigned to look into an unsolved murder from Mississippi, and what they find is bizarre. The victim was kept captive and later had his right arm garroted off completely. Pendergast’s keen and unusual instinct for following up and sniffing out leads will find him and Chambers heading down a path that uncovers other victims, each of whom had their right arms removed, which is what happened to the corpse from the prologue.

We learn that Proctor, who is being kept prisoner in a padded cell, once served in the military under Pendergast --- making their ultimate reunion ironic. Proctor is shrewd enough to know that his captor is specifically interested in his right arm and angers him when he takes a blade to it, cutting it up badly. Chambers and Pendergast eventually rescue Proctor, and they learn that the culprit may be a man named Wickman. When they attempt his apprehension, they find his home in flames and his body floating in the nearby waterway. They also note that he is missing his right arm.

The premise of this case is extremely creepy, and the answers lie in Wickman's past. Chambers and Pendergast face more than a few pitfalls along the way, and the backlash they receive from the New Orleans FBI office temporarily drives a wedge between them in the early days of their partnership. Preston and Child keep the surprises coming, and the revelations are unsettling and brilliant in their construct. The finale is wild and unpredictable with some truly shocking events that I did not see coming.

The last chapter of PENDERGAST is both cathartic and nostalgic as it is taken directly from RELIC. We get to see how Pendergast steps directly from the action of this book into the strange case baffling the NYPD at the Museum of Natural History that started it all. Readers hopefully will love this move as much as I did!