#special agent pendergast

[feedergoldfish]

It was a mess that was about to become a fucking mess.

------

Sergeant D'Agosta in Brimstone by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

[mydearaloysius]

Laaadiiiies…

[imaginependergast]

Imagine

"Aloysius," said Constance, "may I enquire as to why we're wrist deep in pumpkin innards?"

Sitting at the head of a long dining table deep in the dining room that was deep within the Riverside mansion flanked by Constance to his right, Special Agent Pendergast delicately scooped the last bit of guts from inside his pumpkin. Carefully, he placed the stringy pulp and seeds onto a nearby dish. "Because, my dear Constance, it's a holiday tradition. And that which is supposed to ward off malevolent spirits."

Constance, not having as much of her pumpkin cleared, took a spoon to the inside of the fruit to try and scrape some of the sides loose. She asked, "Since when are you a man of tradition? And more importantly, since when are you a believer in spirits?"

"Given the year we've had, I think we may benefit from a bit of protection from what may wander beyond the veil."

Constance added a handful of pulp to the waste plate.

"Surely you jest."

She looked at him and, despite his stoic expression, caught the hint of mischievousness in his eyes and how the fine lines at the edges of his eyes ever so slightly turned upward with a microsmile. She continued the task at hand despite the uncomfortability of loose strings of fiber and cold stickiness that coated her hand. Meanwhile Pendergast had taken a marker and drawn on the face of his pumpkin: two triangles above the outline of a zigzag.

Next he took a large knife and pierced the thick flesh of the pumpkin at the top tip of one of the triangles. With some effort and maneuvering he was able to cut the outline of the shape. Interest piqued, Constance watched as he did the same for the second triangle following up his carving by pushing the triangular cuts into the belly of the gourd. The zigzag was less easy. Starting at the left he made a few scissoring cuts but struggled to take the change in direction of the line. It was somewhat of a struggle to both turn the pumpkin as needed and safely control the knife but he did manage to get to the end with his hand in tact. The bottom portion of the zigzag was somehow even less fortunate. What would be the mouth of the jack-o-lantern was uneven in width and the lines he was cutting didn't always match the lines from the top.

"It appears that pumpkin carving is not one of your many fortes," said Constance.

Pendergast removed the zigzag piece and triangles from the pumpkin and evaluated the finished product.

"Admittedly, this isn't my most successful endeavor."

"It's also missing a nose."

She was right. And there was no space to add one.

"Yes, well," Pendergast put the lid onto his jack-o-lantern, "Perhaps this one may still do it's duty to protect us."

Constance, surprisingly, found herself feeling a bit sorry for the pumpkin at the sight of it's mishappen mouth.

"If the spirits don't find it too pitiful."

"With a a bit of candle light this one will no doubt be our finest protector. What are your plans for your jack-o-lantern?"

"I'm not sure," Constance said as she emptied another handful of pulp, "But I can assure you it will have a nose."

Pendergast smiled softly. "Taunt me as you will, but I am quite satisfied with my attempt despite the unusual features."

"Unusual is one word for it," Constance rubbed her fingers together to dislodge a few seeds stuck to her skin, "Do you plan on baking the seeds?"

"Ordinarily pumpkin seeds are not an indulgence of mine but, given the spirit of the season, it may be time for me to reevaluate. The absolute worst case scenario is that Proctor finds himself the beneficiary of a particularly salty snack."

[swede1952]

Good morning, friends. 🌸💮🪷

12 September 2023

I'm off to a late start this morning, I was up late reading a book by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, titled Dead Mountain. I haven't finished it yet. It's the fourth book in the Nora Kelly series. The series is a spin off from the Pendergast series. Nora Kelly, a archaeologist, who appeared in at least one of the Pendergast boos is the main character but FBi agent Corrie Swanson, also a character who appeared in the Pendergast series, regularly teams up with Kelly.

If you're not familiar with the Pendergast series, the first book is "The Relic" which was made into a movie without the character Aloysius Pendergast, a FBI Special Agent. Anybody who's read the Pendergast series can't imagine why they would leave him out.

“Don’t you love that phrase, a person of interest? So rich with dark suggestion, so full of murky hints—without actually saying anything. at all.” - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

[bethnalgreen]

The Preston and Child Books

Welcome to my corner of Tumblr, and my first-ever post. Sorry about the length!

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

I can't even remember when I first read "Relic," the first novel in what became the Pendergast series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It was probably sometime in the 1990s. I do have specific memories of reading "The Cabinet of Curiosities" in the summer of 2002. My sister and I had just moved to New York City, and I was working at Barnes & Noble. You could borrow any hardcover book from B&N to read as long as you put a protective book cover on it. I spent several late nights reading it in our sublet, scared half to death and definitely entertained.

For the next six years, I was a passionate fan of these books. I even managed to snag an audiobook version of "The Book of the Dead" before its official release date (not from B&N) because I was going to be on a plane that day and wanted desperately to read it ASAP.

It's hard to believe that's been almost 15 years ago. I'm still reading the P/C books, and looking forward to them, but I've found myself increasingly disappointed in them.

I don't want to just dump on them. I write for fun but have never finished a story, and I truly applaud the imagination and dedication evident in even the books I truly dislike. (And there have been a few. I give every P/C book a second chance, but it doesn't always make me like it more. The novels I love have been read at least half a dozen times.)

The sticking point for me in the last half-dozen books or so has been the character of Constance Greene (she's so special she can't just be a Green, she has to be a Greene.) She's like a female version of Agent Pendergast, minus the empathy, charm, and any other personality trait that makes him tolerable.

Pendergast can be a pill, that's for sure. But I always manage to root for him, because he does occasionally show signs that he's human. Constance may as well be a robot ... actually, that could explain a lot. Pendergast's outrageous intellectual and physical feats can be explained to some degree by his wealth, his education, his experience in special forces, and his FBI training.

Constance, on the other hand, was picked up off the street at age six by a sociopath. He molded her into exactly what he wanted in a companion. She had more than a century to practice the harpsichord, study languages (Gaelic, really? How convenient), and read hundreds of books on esoteric subjects. She apparently never left the house during that time, which is why her physical feats really beggar belief.

As much as I like "The Book of the Dead," this crap with Constance started then. She'd been a long-term shut-in, but she somehow was able to track Diogenes all around the world, get the better of him in Florence despite his meticulous planning, and outthink him on the slopes of Stromboli.

From there, it's only gotten worse. She's become an "all-knowing ninja," to quote someone on Reddit. She can fire a machine gun after watching (with ill-concealed boredom, no doubt) a man show off the weapon for a few minutes. She can swim, even though she couldn't just a few weeks earlier. She becomes an adept at Chongg Ran after a few lessons (of course she does!).

And what makes it all worse is this gross quasi-romance that's taken up too much time in the series. Constance has convinced herself that she's in love with Pendergast, and she won't take no for an answer. (He's told her "no," with words and body language, more than once.)

If Pendergast has to have a romantic partner, doesn't he deserve better than a short-tempered, monomaniacal sociopath? This woman threatened to kill him in "Blue Labyrinth" for reminding her about her dalliance with Diogenes, then planned her own suicide as he lay dying in the hospital. She saves his life because she's obsessed with him and is dependent on him.

I haven't yet read "The Cabinet of Dr. Leng" -- given how Constance-centric it sounds, I've decided to get it from the library instead of spending my hard-earned money on it -- but I'm hoping the trilogy is a way to gracefully get rid of her. Have her fall for a man back in the 1880s and stay there. Hell, have Diogenes pilot a spaceship from Area 51 back into the 1880s and whisk her off to Mars!

She's taken up enough space in this series. Please, guys, just ditch her already ...

Favorite P/C Novels

Relic, Thunderhead, The Cabinet of Curiosities, Still Life with Crows, The Book of the Dead, Fever Dream, White Fire

Least Favorite P/C Novels

Brimstone, Cemetery Dance, Crimson Shore, Obsidian Chamber, City of Endless Night, Crooked River, Bloodless

[esonetwork]

'The Scorpion's Tail' Book Review By Ron Fortier

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/the-scorpions-tail-book-review-by-ron-fortier/

'The Scorpion's Tail' Book Review By Ron Fortier

THE SCORPION’S TAIL By Preston & Child Grand Central Publishing 401 pgs

This is the second thriller in the Special Agent Pendergast spin-off series starring two of his best supporting characters. The first being Archeologist Nora Kelly who was around from the first Pendergast adventure teaming up with his young protégé, newly minted FBI Agent Corrie Swanson. Though why the publisher opts to label this the “Nora Kelly” series is beyond my logic. It really should be the “Kelly – Swanson” series. Oh well, the eccentricities of publishers.

Like the first, this one also focuses on historical mysteries with these set in the western state of New Mexico. A young, extremely likeable town Sheriff named Homer Watts encounters a would-be looter at work in a high mountain ghost town. When he confronts the fellow, the perp tries to shoot him. Much to his dismay as Watts is a fast draw crack shot and wounds the varmint. But that isn’t what sets alarms off. Rather it is the fact that the two-bit artifact thief was in process of uncovering a dead body; a dead body buried on government land. Enter the FBI and Agent Corrine Swanson.

Realizing the excavation of a body is beyond her considerable expertise, Corrie recruits Nora Kelly to assist her and pretty soon the trained archeologist finds herself pulled into the mystery. Not only is the corpse weirdly mummified, but in his possession is an ornate, bejeweled cross that dates back to the days of the Spanish conquistadores. Could the dead man have been hunting lost Spanish gold mines rumored to be hidden in those mountains? And what connection does the dead man have to the White Plains Desert Military base; home to the first atom bomb test?

Once again, Preston and Child weave an intricate, pretzel-twisty plot that mushrooms multiple new questions whenever one is answered. Enough to keep both Nora and Corrie hopping back and forth from one end of the state to the other looking to solve not one, but several historical puzzles all seemingly intertwined. Along the way, they encounter some truly colorful Western characters ala Sheriff Watts and a descendant of Geronimo. In the end, “The Scorpion’s Tale” is another grand Preston & Child outing and one we heartily recommend. Kelly and Swanson may not be Pendergast, but they sure are the next best thing

[korrektheiten]

Gesundes Bein amputiert: Wenn das ZDF Wahnsinn zur Normalität macht…

Ansage: »Die Krimi-Reihe um Special-Agent Pendergast von Douglas Preston und Lincoln Child ist mit unheimlichen Fällen reich gesegnet. In einem der Romane spült die Flut über hundert identische blaue Schuhe an einen idyllischen Badestrand – in denen jeweils noch ein menschlicher Fuß steckt. Wenn ich an das Lesen des Buches zurückdenke, ziehe ich unwillkürlich meine eigenen […] The post Gesundes Bein amputiert: Wenn das ZDF Wahnsinn zur Normalität macht… first appeared on Ansage. http://dlvr.it/SnMcDq «

[marjaystuff]

New Blog:  From a Book

For Christmas, my sister Anne gave me a new book, Crochet Cute Critters by Sarah Zimmerman.  Some background, I do love to crochet.  I learned how to crochet when I was 12 from a neighbor.  Since then I have always made blankets and scarves.  Things made with patterns someone taught me or I memorized.  I struggled to read the foreign language known as a pattern.  This year, my aunt has taught me some more about reading patterns, but she still had to walk me through them and then I memorized them.    

Now with this book for beginners, I am reading patterns.  That is not saying all my critters look like the critters in the book right off.  There have been bad words yelled and lots of stitches ripped out!  I am still working and learning to read each of the directions.  That is not including Yoshi’s sheer excitement with yarn tempting him to attack with claws to catch the moving target.  

It is amazing that with this book, my sister gave me a chance to learn a new skill and allow me to stretch to the next level. A book that allowed me to spread my passion for crocheting.  A book that opened new worlds.  And isn’t that the point - isn’t that what books are really for, to open our eyes to new worlds.  

Elise Cooper sent in a couple of items to add this week.  There is a guest review of  The Cabinet of Dr. Leng by Preston and Child about special agent Pendergast. The interview of Sarah Sundin and her newest book, The Sound of Light is so interesting.  Certainly any book that focuses on courage and bravery is pertinent to our times, no matter what year it was written about.

[thegreatwhinger]

Cold Vengeance

I completed Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's Cold Vengeance last night and enjoyed it, which is typically the case when I read about the adventures of intrepid Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast.

By the way, it's worth mentioning that Peter Hyams' The Relic is a really good movie, with a great performance by Tom Sizemore, but the movie excised Pendergast entirely.

Though what's particularly interesting to me is that I didn't notice before was that he feels very reminiscent of Lamont Cranston (otherwise known as the Shadow).

[calamitous-madness]

I was making myself some green tea and I almost steeped it for too long and I started to freak out and my husband said "chill you're not making it for Pendergast"

[pendergast-suggestions]

Overturn an on-fire platter of cherries jubilee, because really, when are you likely to be met with such an opportunity again.

[billsmithbackjr]

[mydearaloysius]

All grown up.

[imaginependergast]

The Cabinet of Dr. Leng: The Hot Take

  Here we go. I finished it and my thoughts are under the cut. For the next two weeks if I do any Imagines or answer any Asks that contain spoilers or specific details or characters from the book I’m going to tag it spoilers: tcdl. 

Not a spoiler, but I feel like this experience will be made better by reading Cabinet of Curiosities before this.  Very open to hearing what you all think or have any Imagine requests.

Alternate Title: Pendergast & Fenec fuck everything up 

I liked this overall. I thought it was a tad slow at points, mostly in the first half since there was a lot of set-up on Constance’s part but since this is a multi-book arc I don’t think this is a problem. Overall I was pretty engaged the entire time. 

Sometimes I forget the time frame in the books. When Coldmoon said he only knew Pendergast for three months I did a mental double take. 

I love the friendship between D’Agosta and Pendergast. I thought it was adorable how D’Agosta missed his buddy and I’m happy he’s a major player.

I forgot how much Hayward does not like Pendergast. Maybe because it’s been so long since she’s been a character but I remembered her feelings on Pendergast being a bit warmer than they seem to really be. She does not like him and seems to not even want Vinnie to talk to him. Also I’m slightly worried for D’Agosta’s marriage because I could easy see Hayward being like ‘me or him’. 

Did everyone forget they have kids? Constance literally went into the Pendergast Cinematic Universe (PCU) multiverse without giving one single shit about her son. I guess the charitable or easiest rationale is that she’s satisfied he’s off being a living deity to some monks and that basically means he’s on his own anyway but when Constance was waxing poetic about missing Pendergast I thought it was pretty obvious she didn’t mention her son. I really hate that Constance had a kid as a plot point and I feel like the authors are hoping we just forget about that. I don’t hate Pendergast having kids nearly as much, but you’d think he might semi-consider his living son when he’s doing some crazy time/space traveling. This isn’t exactly like a normal fed case. Maybe that’s a stupid point because being a Special Agent as he is is inherently dangerous but I feel like this should be mentally weightier than what starts as his typical cases. My problem is more with Constance’s child. I will continue to harp on this because it, like everything about Wheel of Darkness and this stupid twist, pisses me off.  

On the note of Constance missing Pendergast- “breath caressing her ear”... does that imply they banged? I know he’s kissed her before, but this seems like an oddly more intimate detail that wouldn't be a thing if they were just talking or spending time together. 

Similarly, Pendergast calling Constance “My Constance”. That could just be ‘my’ meaning from my timeline, but it could also be ‘my’ as in mine. 

Ferenc sucks. Fuck them kids that guy. Happy he died and can’t be more of an asshole.

I liked the Proctor-bits. He seems like such a badass. I want him as my manservant.

D I O G E N E S 

I literally said, outload, ‘yes!’ when I finished the book and he showed up. I  fucking love it. I am so happy that he’s back and everyone is now involved in the weird operation. I’m looking forward to finding out what he’s been up to, if he’s still simping for Constance and how he and Pendergast are going to work together.  I also expect he might double cross everyone at some point because he do that. 

It’s pretty obvious but I’m really interested in where this goes. Personally, I don’t think Constance, if given the choice, will end up staying in the past. I think Pendergast, by the end, will finally say what he needs to say and she’ll go back. Or if she loses young Constance and Joe I think she’ll go back regardless. Personally, I don’t think the kids will make it. From a purely book-writing standpoint I don’t know where the story could go with them alive and living in current day. The series already warehouses all the kids. Frankly, I don’t want them around as regular characters anyway.

I think if the kids do survive, Constance will figure out how to set them up for life with all the money and assets she has and she’ll return to the current day knowing they they are safe, comfortable and free to live their own lives. I kind of wonder if she’ll think about taking them out of their time/universe and how they may feel similarly as out of time and freakish as Constance did. 

I can’t get over Diogenes. 

I really want to get back into writing smut fanfic about these characters.

I really like Murphy. I think he’s a great B character but I also fear he won’t make it. I’m getting the creeping feeling of O'Shaughnessy from Cabinet of Curiosities. 

My general feeling about this book was that it’s set up for the rest. It did the job of making me invested and really wanting to know what happens next  a lot of which is just because of D i o g e n e s.

If I had to guess, I’m going to like this more than the Helen trilogy and Diogenes trilogy. 

I’m also interested in the museum curator murder. There has to be something interesting there with how he was killed. Twoeagle getting shot is one thing, but this murder seems like more. They probably are truly related, but I feel like there’s something about this murder. 

Kinda hoping this entire arc ends with Constance getting some d from at least one of the Pendergast brothers. 

[commodoresam]

Gabriel Knight- A blonde, blue eyed, amateur detective with a “southern drawl” from Louisiana who solves supernatural crimes. Has a family secret/curse. A. Pendergast- A blonde, silvery eyes, FBI Agent with a “honeyed southern drawl” from Louisiana who solves supernatural crimes. Has a family secret/curse. Hmmmm. Something suspicious goin on here

[bethnalgreen]

Dead Mountain preview chapters

So, the new novel in Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's Nora Kelly (and Corrie Swanson) series is out in about a week. I ordered my copy from the Poisoned Pen because I want the collectible cards. (Sorry, guys, don't really care that it's an "autographed" first edition.) I used to be a B&N bookseller, so I know people who order from there or Amazon tend to receive the book on the release date, while I'll have to wait a week or two. Fortunately, Amazon has a sample available online that I can obsess over in the meantime.

Spoilers for the new book (and previous books in the series) ahead!

Chapter 1: It's late October. Two frat guys get stuck in the snow in the New Mexico mountains. They proceed to get drunk and stoned, crawl into a cave for shelter, and find human remains.

Chapter 2: She's back! My favorite character, Special Agent Corinne/Corrine Swanson, appears. (Has Hachette fired all their proofreaders? Come on, it's kind of essential that you figure out how the first name of your co-heroine is spelled.)

It appears that Corrie has spent the past few months on boring FBI assignments after the shit-show that wrapped up Diablo Mesa. I find the mention of debriefings and lie detector tests reassuring; I wondered how much she told her superiors about what happened. Apparently, she told them everything. Unfortunately, it looks like she's gotten screwed over again with regards to commendations, promotions, etc. because of the case's classified nature. Typical. (Can't FBI agents get commendations or decorations for classified work? It seems like Pendergast has a few of those in his jacket.)

Her boss now has a case for her, and introduces her to her new mentor, Agent Sharp. (RIP, Hale Morwood.) Corrie notices that his clothes and haircut are better than typical FBI issue. He's pretty quiet, has an accent she can't quite place, and has a reputation for being somewhat of a lone wolf. Hmm, reminds me of someone ...

Anyway, her boss assigns her the human-remains-in-the-mountains case, and Corrie and Sharp leave posthaste.

Just a small rant here. This chapter states Corrie's been at the Albuquerque FO for about a year. Excuse me, it's been ALMOST TWO YEARS. She started her assignment in ABQ in January 20xx. The meat of the story in Old Bones took place in May/June. The events of Scorpion's Tail took place three months later (fall of 20xx). Diablo Mesa took place six months after that (spring of the next year). Dead Mountain explicitly starts four months later, on Halloween. That's nearly two years. Her probationary period should almost be up already. Sometimes I wonder if the authors are deliberately messing with the timeline to keep Corrie in stasis, or whether they just can't be bothered with consistency.

Chapter 3: We begin with another inconsistency. We're told that Morwood was forced into a mentoring role by an "injury," but it was actually his interstitial lung disease.

Corrie learns a little more about the Manzano Mountains region and gets snarky about the "need" for hundreds of nuclear weapons. Sharp seems to appreciate the sarcasm.

We're introduced to a deputy for Torrance County, who reminds Corrie of her "friend," Sheriff Watts of Socorro County. She wonders what Watts is up to. This is interesting ... he asked her out in Diablo Mesa, and she pretty much accepted. It's now four months later, she obviously hasn't been too busy, and they haven't gone on that date yet? In fact, it doesn't even sound like she's really kept in touch with him. Maybe later chapters will clarify this situation and explain how in the world he's surviving with only one of his Colt Peacemakers.

The deputy seems decent enough, but the big kahuna himself, Sheriff Hawley, is yet another of the male LEOs that Corrie runs into all too often. Calls her "young lady" even after she's identified herself as FBI and refuses to leave the scene (which he's stomping all over without protective gear) until the MALE FBI agent threatens him. Sigh.

Side note: I got an email from Poisoned Pen, which refers to an "evil sheriff" in this novel. Does Hawley have something to do with the "Dead Mountain" cold case that Corrie and Nora are going to investigate? On the other hand, one Goodreads review says that the plotline with Nora, Skip, and the sheriff goes nowhere. Is he just evil for evil's sake, then?

Anyway, Corrie goes into the cave and sees the human remains. And there the preview abruptly ends.

I feel like there's a lot of unpack here, and we don't even know what's going on with Nora and her billionaire boyfriend!

As much as I bitch about continuity errors in these books (I guess you never stop being a copy editor) I almost always really enjoy them. I expect I'll devour Dead Mountain as fast as I can, give it a chance to digest, and then read it again for things I missed the first time. And I'll definitely login to watch Preston and Child's appearance at the Poisoned Pen on publication day.

Anyone who reads this, feel free to speculate on what might happen in the book. I have a feeling the next few weeks are going to drag ...