Dance of Death

bq. Picking up two months after the events chronicled in Brimstone (2004), which saw the untimely demise of popular series hero FBI Special Agent Pendergast, this new novel by the Preston-Child team brings together characters from previous novels. The people closest to Pendergast are dying in horrible ways, and only one man can be responsible: Diogenes, Pendergast's long-lost brother, who has supposedly been dead for years. Meanwhile, at the New York Museum of Natural History, an internal battle rages over the rightful ownership of some ancient relics. Will these two stories link up? Well, of course, no surprise there. It's how they link up that packs the surprises. This is an ambitious novel with a gimmicky plot that could have landed with a resounding thud. Instead, the story soars; the cast of familiar characters -- researcher Margo Green, journalist Bill Smithback, curator Nora Kelly -- is given a chance to stretch, and the authors deliver an exhilarating finale. Good stuff, and there's more to come, as the novel's last lines make clear. David Pitt