Review by Booklist Review
FBI special agent Aloysius Pendergast doesn't often take on private cases, but he makes an exception for a man whose pricey wine collection has been stolen from his home in a small seaside Massachusetts town. Pendergast and his ward, Constance Greene, soon figure out that the wine theft was merely a cover-up for an entirely different crime: a skeleton, concealed for more than a century behind the basement walls of the old house, has been stolen. Soon there is a murder, followed by another, and everything seems connected not only to the disappearance of a sailing vessel in the late 1800s but also to survivors of the Salem witch hunts. The Pendergast novels combine elegant prose with sharp-witted storytelling, and the FBI agent continues to be one of thrillerdom's more engaging characters. A worthy entry in the long-running series.--Pitt, David Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The 15th fantastic adventure of eccentric, brilliant Special FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast finds him and Constance Greene, his lovely young ward, leaving their Manhattan mansion for Exmouth, Mass., on a case unrelated to the agency-the theft of a wine cellar. This basic bit of sleuthing leads to much more: a corpse in a hidden chamber, additional murders, a colony of witches, and an unstoppable, homicidal creature that is thought to exist only in local lore. Over the years, Auberjonois has developed the perfect voice for Pendergast-seasoned, aristocratic, Southern, and, when dealing with a bully like Exmouth's police chief, irritatingly arrogant. Auberjonois's version of Constance, who is having difficulty hiding her desire for her older mentor (and he for her), is acceptable, but if the authors continue to expand her participation in these thrillers, a younger, female co-reader may be advisable. A Grand Central hardcover. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Amid the salt marshes near Exmouth, Massachusetts, FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast finds an antique medallion of Morax, a demon. Is there a connection to the deliberate sinking of the cargo ship Pembroke Castle by desperate town folk in 1884? In Preston and Child's (Blue Labyrinth, 2014, etc.) latest, renowned sculptor Percival Lake asks the weird and wily Pendergast to find his looted wine collection. Oddly, the thieves left behind a case of the rarest vintage, Chateau Haut-Braquilanges '04. Intrigued, Pendergast and his ward, Constance, drive to seaside Exmouth, where they meet an incompetent police chief who's overlooked a skeleton long ago walled up in Lake's wine cellar. Pendergast discovers the hidden skeleton is linked to a missing suite of flawless rubies, the Pride of Africa. In the "lean winter" of 1883-84, featuring disastrous weather caused by a faraway volcanic eruption, townspeople doused the lighthouse and lured Pembroke Castle, carrying the rubies, aground. The grounding and what followed became an atrocity shadowing Exmouth history. Oenophiles will shudder as the wine theft turns sideshow after a historian tracing the shipwreck and a local attorney are killed. Both have "TYBANE" carved into their corpses. Those new to the series get no back story on Pendergast, not on FBI assignment in this case, or Constance, but the book is entertaining, spiced up with arcane words like "desuetude" and quirky descriptionsa body found with a crab "cowering in the comb-over." Employing Chongg Ran meditation and a Les Baer .45, Pendergast is an appealingly quirky hero, as when he remarks of Moby-Dick, "I, myself, am not fond of animal stories." Pendergast is a modern Sherlock Holmes, albeit one preferring absinthe to cocaine. The conclusion of this compelling two-prong mystery assures another crime conundrum is sure to wash ashore. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
