Book Review: Pendergast: The Beginning" by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

 

It only took six months for the life of Special Agent Dwight Chambers to crumble around him. First, he lost his partner, and then, tragically, his wife. Returning to work at the New Orleans Field Office, Chambers is dismayed to find himself saddled with mentoring a brand new FBI agent—a certain A. X. L. Pendergast. As Chambers tries to pull himself together, his enigmatic and exasperating junior partner pulls an outrageous stunt that gets both of them suspended.

Pendergast welcomes the banishment, because it gives him the opportunity to investigate a peculiar murder in Mississippi that has captured his fancy. Chambers grudgingly goes along. What starts off as a whimsical quest swiftly turns into a terrifying pursuit, as Chambers and Pendergast uncover a string of grisly, ritualistic killings that defy any known serial killer profile.
 
Thanks in large part to Pendergast’s brilliance and unorthodox methods, they solve the case and find the killer… and that is when the true horror begins. - from Netgalley.com  

This eARC was provided by Netgalley.com and I am giving an unbiased review.

Where to start with this one? Having read all prior 22 books in this series (in order) to finally get to read a prequel on our Special Agent was a true treat. Though in other books, there were bits and pieces of Pendergast's past, mostly scattered bits amongst the books, but this jumps right into what appears to be his first FBI assignment (and case).

To go back - what, twenty to thirty years - to a much younger, and supposedly inexperienced rookie agent of the FBI took some skill from the authors. I see Pendergast being a bit more "uppity" and not as well-adjusted and rounded, to dealing with people that just are not as intelligent as he is. And it was a whole book of it! Every page turn I wanted to see more of his past - the secret military-type organization that brought Proctor and himself together. Here this ties in how Proctor ends up working with/for Pendergast. But there is so much more I want to find out about this exceptional, unique character.

Kudos to Preston and Child on completing yet another great work that I very much enjoyed reading.

Book Review: "The Hard Line" by Mark Greaney

 

Family means different things to different people, but in the Gray Man’s world, family is defined by blood—the blood you share with some and the blood you shed with others.

Court Gentry’s current family operates out of an office park in Norfolk, Virginia. The Ghost Town is an off-the-books direct action team run by Matt Hanley, former CIA Deputy Director. They take on the jobs the Agency needs handled “discretely,” and those jobs are rolling in.

Somewhere at the top of the US Intelligence apparatus, security experts and intelligence operations worldwide are threatened. 

It starts with a blown safe house in Tunis. Then Court himself barely escapes from an ambush in the jungles of Nicaragua. Now key members of the U.S. counterintelligence community are being assassinated in their own neighborhoods. With the feds compromised, it’s up to Court and his team to stop the hit squads. 

But eliminating professional kill teams may be the least of the Gray Man’s worries when he finds himself targeted by the legendary assassin codenamed Whetstone—a man driven out of retirement by a very personal quest to rain down hellfire on Court and everyone he’s ever loved, starting with the father he hasn’t seen in twenty years. - from Netgalley.com 

This eARC was provided by Netgalley.com and I am giving an unbiased review.

This is book number 15 in 'The Gray Man' series by this author. Again, Greaney has surprised me with a story line that he has been able to further on a great character. After the last book, where Court rescued his love, he is now pulled back into Ghost Town with Hanley, his old Sierra Six leader, and some other office operatives. This time there is a threat to US agents/teams around the world as somehow information of their whereabouts are being released and they are being murdered. As Court and his team investigate outside of any US agency protocol to find the leak, they discover more intrigue. 

This has got to be the least action-oriented novel in this series, and concentrates more on intelligence info, deductive reasoning, and how the other World Powers work against each other. I found myself drawn more into the story as the alleged fictional happenings just sound believable in today's current times of crisis. At times it felt like the smokescreens were more than three deep, as they work to unravel the plot.

Kudos to Greaney! Another great read, and I am so hoping for at least a few more stories of Court and his retinue, even if we step out of the government-type intrigue and maybe just something like protecting their lives (and lives of the children). I'm throwing out 4.5 stars, though most sites only let me go to whole numbers.

Book Review: "Nexus (Witchy Women)" by N. G. Avant

 

Four women. Four strangers. One prophecy that will change history forever.

Drawn to Salem by an ancient pull, four women arrive with no idea that fate has been waiting for them. Each carries a fragment of a forgotten bloodline, but it isn’t until they meet on their shared birthday that the truth is together, they are the key to rewriting history itself.

By the next blue moon, they must decide whether to embrace the power calling them or risk leaving the world shackled by the past.

Nexus is just the beginning and will be used as my Lead Magnet. It's a novella prequel that introduces the prophecy and the women bound to it. Four elemental novellettes will follow, each released slowly in the lead-up to the first full-length Witchy Women novel coming out on the blue moon in May 2026. Think of this as the doorway into a much bigger world! - from BookSirens.com

This eARC was provided by Booksirens.com and I giving an unbiased review.

There have not been many times I have come across an author that puts out an 'origination' story prequel novella/novel before there are at least a couple books into the series. I am guessing at the request of the readers, to know how the characters came to be/meet/have powers, but it is what it is.

That being said, I am leery of reading this upcoming series. The premise of the storyline drew me in, and this being a prequel origination, I thought it might actually make me want to get the next book. Not so in this case. 

It is a novella. I know it is going to be short, and depending on how the author feels, there may be too much room to write (without getting into their main storyline) or too little to include all they want to, so they have to "trim" corners. That is sort of how I felt about this one. Things started off well, explaining how these four women all happened to be in the same city at the same time. Then things went kaput for me.

The writing style seemed rushed in trying to get as much main details into this story, and the conversations felt like they were written in a hurry. How the characters all conveniently find out about this ancestral heritage/connection and the whole idea of being to have/use magic as just accepted way too easily. By the end of the book, they all have powers, they realize they are related in some shape or form, and again, conveniently, their powers tend to match their lifestyle/employment. Well, that one makes sense.

Overall, I felt the idea was wonderful, and I am still a bit curious about how they will be using their powers, against whom/what. It might be enough for me to check out the first book when it is released. Otherwise, I felt the writing was too quickly undertaken, with no depth to characters, background information, and the 'hidden' purpose behind why now of all times they have come together. I think young adults would enjoy this better than I will, as it seems to be written more to that genre.