Dance of Death

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Special FBI Agent Aloysius Pendergast has been caught up in some eerie, suspenseful cases in the past few years. He has saved other people from unbelievable situations. Although a loner, he has made a few friends along the way. Now the case is personal. His insane brother Diogenes has started murdering Pendergast's friends. As far as the world in general knows, Diogenes died in an automobile crash twenty years earlier. Pendergast knows better. Diogenes has only gone underground.

Diogenes sends Pendergast a note (in Brimstone) stating only "January 28". Pendergast knows this date is important, but doesn't know why. Then he disappears. He leaves a message for his friend, NYPD Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta. He asks Vinnie to find and stop Diogenes.

Vinnie has help connecting a murder in New Orleans to one in New York City and another in Washington D.C. The woman he lives with, Captain Laura Hayward, is assigned the New York City murder. Vinnie tries to get her to see that connection herself without revealing his sources. Soon he realizes he is one of the next intended victims. He jeopardizes his romance and his career to stop Diogenes.

Brimstone left the reader hanging. Now Dance of Death picks up a few months afterward and brings in Diogenes. In the past Pendergast has made hints about his brother. The reader now gets to meet this mad man. Diogenes' actions get diabolical and hair raising. As you think you know where it is going, Preston and Child twist a different direction. Dance of Death gets intense.

But once again, the reader is left hanging. It takes the authors one more novel to bring Pendergast's and Diogenes' story to a close. In the meantime, Diogenes is a scary antogonist. The book keeps its hooks in the reader.

Relic
Reliquary
Cabinet of Curiousities
Still Life with Crows
Brimstone
Dance of Death
The Book of the Dead
The Wheel of Darkness
Cemetary Dance
Fever Dream
Cold Vengeance
Two Graves