I finished the 8th Pendergast novel, The Wheel of Darkness by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child a couple of days ago. It was very enjoyable as the other series of Pendergast novels have been. Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are currently some of my favorite fiction writers. The book only took me three days to finish, but confess I spent most of my free time devouring it.
This book has Special Agent Aloysius Perdergast of the FBI and his immortal ward Constance Greene searching for a lost Tibetan relic on an ocean liner. The storyline is pretty straight forward, but did keep me riveted. I like stories that have realism so was a little put off by the smoke monster. The concept that there is a geometrical drawing that can reprogram or deprogram the human mind I thought was intriguing. It reminded me of that 70s movie with the British actor when somebody invents a strobe light that causes momentarily paralyses and amnesia.
My only compliant was that there wasn’t much character development for Perdergast or the enigmatic Miss Greene. I would very much like to see a book bringing out her story. Or maybe was in one of the earlier books, but can’t remember.
In short, The Wheel of Darkness is a good and easy read if you are into mindless mystery/adventure fiction. Relic and Still Life with Crows are still my two favorites so far in the Perdergast series.
