Cemetery Dance
Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
448 pp. Grand Central Publishing. $26.99
Pub. Date: 5/12/2009
ISBN-13: 978-0446580298
Reviewed by Paul Stotts
Here’s one for the strange case file. Strange like those head-scratching stories that are plastered in big, bold headlines across supermarket tabloids, like a glittering neon sign screaming: something weird this way comes! Weird things like Sasquatch, UFOs and ghosts haunting the local Piggly Wiggly, a poltergeist in produce causing the celery root to rearrange itself. Strange events that toe the line of believability, that test our gullibility. That seem beyond rational explanation.
The latest entry in this wacky world of weird: a couple is brutally attacked in their swanky
No, things get weird—and the story careens off the tracks of normalcy, plunging into the land of tabloids and media honey—when a curious thing is revealed about the assailant. He’s dead. As in six-feet-under-buried-in-your-best-black-suit dead. A suicide victim who took a long jump off a tall bridge; his body fished from the river, taken to the morgue and identified by his sister. And then buried. About two weeks prior to the attack.
So how does a dead man commit such a crime? Shuffling off the mortal coil should limit one’s ability to go all Grand Theft Auto on someone. Clearly, there’s no logical answer. But there may be a sensational one: voodoo. As in the type of voodoo that turns a person into a zombie. And not just a brain-eating mindless shuffling member of the George Romero undead family; this zombie is a little more on the ball, a little more real. And the voodoo behind his creation seems very real.
Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child is the latest adventure featuring their wildly popular recurring protagonist, Special Agent Pendergast. For those unfamiliar with the character, Pendergast puts the Special in Special Agent; he’s a superhero without the cape and tights. A genius and Renaissance man, he’s an investigator par excellence, a wealth of information—seemingly omniscient—who can probably tell you the rectal temperature of a bumblebee. And he always seems to be five steps ahead of everyone else like a master chess player toying with three-year olds.
Which makes finding challenges for him difficult. How do you challenge someone who’s intellectually beyond everyone? Who seemingly can catch a perpetrator even before a crime is committed Minority Report-style, just by knowing the evil in men’s hearts and the darkness in their minds. So how do you challenge him? You give him a case that goes beyond rational explanation, and have him attempt to find a reasonable answer. Like an episode of Scooby-Doo with Pendergast playing the role of the pesky kids uncovering a spooky mystery.
Starting with an improbable premise and trying to make sense of it is the underlying hook in the Pendergast thrillers. It’s the novel’s greatest strength and charm, the very definition of an intriguing page-turner. By taking the unknown and making it known. You keep reading just to see how
But there is a downside to this narrative approach, sometimes the resolution doesn’t satisfy, doesn’t give you the juicy answer you’re expecting. Sometimes it just seems too mundane. Too normal considering the improbable starting premise. This was the case with Cemetery Dance. The buildup is incredible; I found myself rushing through the book, staying up late into the night to finish. Once finished, I found myself asking: is that it? Feeling slightly disappointed in the outcome.
Even with the disappointing ending, Cemetery Dance is a fine addition to the Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child catalog. A finely conceived, executed and intelligently written thriller that’ll keep your nose buried deep within the book. And, ultimately, well worth the ride.
Final Grade: 81 out of 100
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