Blue Labyrinth by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Published by Grand Central Publishing on November 11, 2014

I have never been a fan of Pendergast although I enjoy the Pendergast novels. Pendergast is such a pretentious snob that I often find his literary company to be disagreeable. When, in Blue Labyrinth, Pendergast accuses others of being officious, I wonder if he owns a mirror. The novels, on the other hand, are carefully plotted, never dull, and often feature absorbing mysteries.

When Pendergast's dead son is deposited at his door, Pendergast feels no loss -- his son was "a sociopathic killer of the most dangerous type" -- but since the killers found his son when the FBI and CIA could not, Pendergast knows that his murderers are formidable. Why his son was killed, why there was a turquoise jewel in his son's stomach, and what message the killers meant to send by delivering the corpse to Pendergast are the mysteries that both Pendergast and the reader must solve.

A second storyline involves a murder at the Museum of Natural History. The murder seems to be linked to a murder that occurred in the late nineteenth century but the connection baffles Detective Vincent D'Agosta. He's not happy when Pendergast provides five minutes of assistance and then disappears.

About a third of the novel passes before the inevitable linkage of the two mysteries occurs. The mysteries force Pendergast to confront a dark secret in his ancestry. The motivation for the crimes turns out to be laughably implausible. Pendergast's ability to see the past televised in his mind while meditating is just silly. Some other aspects of the story also plummet off the edge of credibility but that's common in modern thrillers. Believable or not, they provide a foundation for the action that follows. The action scenes are pure fun.

The behind-the-scenes look at the Museum of Natural History is rich with detail, as are descriptions of the crime-controlled slums of Rio. The plot moves forward briskly. While I can't say I warmed up to Pendergast -- quite the opposite -- I enjoyed the story and got a kick out of the secondary characters.

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