Cemetery Dance

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Pendergast-the world's most enigmatic FBI Special Agent-returns to New York City to investigate a murderous cult.William Smithback, a New York Times reporter, and his wife Nora Kelly, a Museum of Natural History archaeologist, are brutally attacked in their apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Eyewitnesses claim, and the security camera confirms, that the assailant was their strange, sinister neighbor-a man who, by all reports, was already dead and buried weeks earlier. While Captain Laura Hayward leads the official investigation, Pendergast and Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta undertake their own private-and decidedly unorthodox-quest for the truth. Their serpentine journey takes them to an enclave of Manhattan they never imagined could exist: a secretive, reclusive cult of Obeah and vodou which no outsiders have ever survived.From Publishers WeeklyBestsellers Preston and Child kill off a regular supporting character at the outset of this suspenseful tale of urban terror, their ninth to feature FBI special agent Aloysius Pendergast (after The Wheel of Darkness). William Smithback, a New York Times reporter, and his wife, Nora Kelly, an anthropologist with the New York Museum of Natural History, are celebrating their first anniversary when Smithback is fatally stabbed in their Manhattan apartment, apparently by a creepy neighbor, Colin Fearing, an out-of-work British actor. Given eyewitness descriptions of the killer, including one from Kelly herself, as well as surveillance footage showing a blood-stained Fearing emerging from the apartment building right after the crime, the case appears to be open and shut—until Pendergast and his NYPD ally, Lt. Vincent D'Agosta, learn that Fearing died almost two weeks earlier. This taut page-turner can only add to the authors' growing fan base. 8-city author tour. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistIt takes a certain amount of guts to start a novel by killing off a popular recurring character, but no one has ever accused this writing team of lacking guts. The latest Pendergast thriller begins with a murder that is apparently committed by a man who, 10 days earlier, was pronounced dead and then buried. But the eyewitness is sure it’s the same man, and footage from a security camera appears to confirm it. How does a dead man commit murder? And why this particular victim? Pendergast, the FBI special agent who frequently takes on personal assignments on a freelance basis, teams up once again with New York police lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta to solve a crime that has ties to the supernatural. Individually, these two writers turn out books that are solid, competent, workmanlike. Together, they manage to kick it up several notches, producing novels that are elegantly written and feature unique characters and eerie, compelling stories. For fans of the Pendergast series, this is a must-read. --David Pitt