By Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, ca. 2024, Grand Central, $30.00, 352 pages
They say you can never go home again.
Oh, sure, you can physically Be You will be there a few times. You may stay overnight, sleep in your old bed, eat at the same table, but something will have changed. Home is no longer home, it is different. Whether it is a week or 10 years, you can never go home again – especially if, as in the new novel, ” “Angel of Vengeance” by Preston & Child, Home is almost 150 years away.
Diogenes Pendergast suspected that Gaspard Ferenc was nothing more than a petty crook.
He had followed Ferenc through the time portal to see what the man was up to, and yes, it was a get-rich-quick scheme that he wanted to take with him into the 21st century. However, Diogenes knew that wouldn’t work, especially since the portal was gone.
When Diogenes discovered his great-great-uncle Enoch Leng with Ferenc, he knew there was trouble. Leng must have known that Diogenes’ brother, FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast, had been there in 1880, as had Aloysius’ partner, who had come through the portal before Ferenc. Pendergast’s ward, Constance Greene, had even returned there earlier.
They had come to this time and place to rescue a 9-year-old girl named Binky, who was actually Constance as a child. In later years, Constance had worked for Leng in his quest to extend human life, and it was at this time that she had come into possession of the Arcanum, a notebook containing information Leng needed to “cleanse” the world. In his experiments on women he had kidnapped, he had murdered Constance’s sister Mary and put her brother Joe in danger.
Constance planned to kill the monster that killed her sister.
But Leng not only had control over most of New York’s riverfront, he also had another advantage: He knew about the portal, and he knew that his plans to create a perfect world would be accelerated in the 21st century.
He just needed to figure out when he would get there. … While it’s true that Angel of Vengeance could be read on its own, don’t. The truth is that you’ll be much, much happier if you check out a few of Pendergast’s other novels. This one relies on earlier books to fill in the gaps you’ll no doubt have.
However, should you decide to start the series with this latest installment from writers Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, there are a few things you should know. The characters are crisp and perfectly fleshed out, embedded with plenty of embarrassing violence, alongside a vile but brilliant madman who embodies, in a time-displaced way, every despot who has been after him since 1880. Beyond that, the story as a whole is dark and dank, a little steampunk-ish, as if someone had painted a portrait of New York City circa 1881 and then wiped it off with watery grime.
Fans of Preston & Child will be happy that Angel of Vengeance is here and that it leaves a few loose ends to tempt you. Newcomers to these authors will love this book—but go back a few pages in the series first.
— The bookworm says
