Two Graves [Preston and Child]
★★★★☆
I
lucked out when upon visiting my local library, I found a copy of Preston and
Child’s Two Graves, freshly procured, no doubt.
Two Graves is the latest addition to the “Pendergast saga”, and the last
book of the “Helen Trilogy”, the second “Trilogy” in the trials and
tribulations of Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast. It’s been well over a decade since Relic, the
first suspense/thriller co-authored by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child was
published. And now, eleven books later,
here I am, still reading the series with fervor. The world that revolves around A.P. has
become familiar ground, and the list of returning characters endearing and reassuring: A.P., D’agosta, Constance Green, Proctor, Wren, and Corrie, among
others, and yes, I still take issue with the rather abrupt and ham-handed way P
and C decided to drop Smithback from the returning ensemble, once and for
all. If I had to pick, I’d say Cemetery
Dance is the weakest link of this series.
It felt rushed, an unrealistic nightmare incongruous from the other
episodes, granted that most of these episodes read like nightmares.
But
Two Graves is a solid addition. It’s not
exactly on par with Relic or Cabinet of Curiosities, but it delivers, and it is
an emotional rollercoaster ride for A.P., the one striking most close to home
(if you thought the business with Diogenes was personal…). The story picks up exactly where it left off in
Cold Vengeance, with a maddening and heartrending pursuit, maddening because we
truly see the stuff A.P. is made of when the life of his love interest is at
stake; heartrending because the outcome is hinted at in the beginning of the
book “before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
Then
we truly see a side of A.P. we have never seen before, though it is again, to
be expected. If it can be said that A.P.
has one vital weakness, it is that he is not used to failure, and indeed, it
drives him within a hair-line of self-inflicted destruction. Then comes the truly surprise factor (for me,
at least) [SPOILER]: Alban and
Tristram. Though in retrospect, it all makes
perfect sense (Kudos to P and C for their potent imagination), now every piece
of the puzzle is falling in place. With Alban
and Tristram now in the picture, the Pendergast saga has taken on a new
direction, with endless possibilities.
The interesting thing is that this rivalry that has taken place between
Pendergast and Diogenes will, if I know anything about drama, surely play
itself out all over again between Alban and Tristram, the good vs. the
evil. I would be genuinely surprised if
this twin-complex does not factor into one or more of the future episodes.
But
what I’d really like to read from P and C in their next Pendergast book is a
standalone story, without too much of the family drama that’s starting to feel
just a tad bit drawn out, but instead a good macabre case with strong deduction
and bone-chilling revelation, that sort of thing, basically, something like the
Cabinet of Curiosities.
