Still Life with Crows by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Still Life with Crows by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

This is the novel that introduced Corrie—one of the two heroines of Old Bones. A murder on the outskirts of a very small Kansas farm community attracts the unofficial attention of Agent Pendergast. The murderer has conducted a bizarre ritual including a bunch of dead crows around the first victim and including legitimate nineteenth century Native American artifacts in the crime scene. Pendergast, unsurprisingly, seems to be the only person with a clue as to what is really happening. Most everyone else wants to pretend that someone passing through the area committed the bizarre crime. But more murders happen and the bad publicity threatens the small town’s chances of being picked as the site of a genetically-enhanced corn experiment that could turn the economy around.

 

This book has all the elements I loved from Relic, Reliquary, and the Cabinet of Curiosities. Pendergast is a great and mysterious hero, oddly pursuing the crime in his own fashion and unconcerned by the reactions of those around him. This one adds the interesting figure of Corrie, a rebellious teenager with no prospects. Pendergast takes her under his wing because she knows everyone in the area, but it was never far from my mind that she was going to grow into the young FBI agent in Old Bones.

 

As the book goes on and evidence begins to accumulate, I was reminded that Preston and Child are capable of delving into science fiction to create their bad guys. I won’t say whether they actually do that this time, but I did like the way they explained their threat and will be long haunted by the explanation of why the bad guy is committing murders.

 

This is another good one by two masters of the field.