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Fans of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child will be happy to discover that FBI Agent Aloysius Pendergast is alive. Readers will remember that he was last seen at the end of BRIMSTONE (2004) buried alive behind a brick wall. His estranged brother, Diogenes, rescued him and nursed him back to health. But this was not a true act of kindness; Diogenes had a dark agenda and needed his brother to live in order to carry out his nefarious plans.
Their Great Aunt Cordelia speaks of Diogenes: "The Pendergast bloodline has been tainted for centuries. Young Diogenes was touched even from the beginning. From the day he was born, he was different. A bad seed indeed. Diogenes never cared for anyone but his mother, of course, but he seemed to put Aloysius in a special category altogether."
From childhood to adulthood, his "dark side" grew and blossomed. And now, in DANCE OF DEATH, he sets in motion a grisly series of torture-murders for which Aloysius is blamed.
Agent Pendergast is a hero in the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Roy Rogers, Superman, and Dick Tracy. He is the antithesis of his psychopathic brother and quickly comes to understand that he is the real target of the hellacious killings. In a painful discussion with his "cop/buddy" sidekick, Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta, he explains: "These deaths, and the manner in which they were staged, were Diogenes's way of attracting my attention. I had always assumed his crime would be against humanity. That's the real reason he rescued me. He doesn't want me dead, he wants me alive --- alive so he can destroy me in a far more exquisite way, leaving me filled with misery…torturing myself with the knowledge that I was unable to save those few people on earth…I truly care about."
Also on the scene are familiar characters: Detective Captain Laura Hayward; author and crime reporter Bill Smithback; his ward, Constance; and Proctor, the majordomo. And a cast worthy of Cecil B. DeMille accompanies them.
As the story takes shape and unfolds, several threads slither into the kaleidoscopic plot with supersonic speed for most of the narrative. But readers may wonder why some of the subplots are given so much space; unfortunately, they slow down the pathos that simmers at the heart of this novel. Too often these "side trips" feel contrived and unnecessary, yet they are not so egregious as to fatally flaw the book. And, for the first time in this series, Preston and Child add a bit of romance to their heady mix of chaos, killing, and intellectual calisthenics and literary allusion.
DANCE OF DEATH may be a bit more melodramatic than the others in this series, but overall the book holds up. The ending is a cliffhanger, which is a sure signal that Preston and Child have something more planned for their clever and fleshed-out characters. Agent Pendergast is sure to return "on his white steed" to put the world right.
--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum
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