chasing bawa

The final novel in the Helen trilogy, Two Graves is also the 12th novel featuring the cerebral, debonair Southern FBI Agent Pendergast who is also the most efficiently ruthless agent who gets the perpetrator even though his methods are often eccentric and barely legal. As this is the concluding volume in a long-running series, there will be spoilers. If you haven’t read any of the books featuring Agent Pendergast, then you are missing out and I suggest that you go and get yourself a copy of The Cabinet of Curiosities which is the first book I read and got me hooked on the series by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. Seriously, you won’t regret it. If you have read most of the books, especially the previous two, Fever Dream and Cold Vengeance, then carry on and tell me what you think!

Following swiftly on from the events of Fever Dream and Cold Vengeance, Agent Pendergast finds himself caught in an intricate web of intrigue and deceit going back almost 70 years as everything he believed about his beloved wife, Helen, is shown to be a lie. He has just been reunited with Helen when she is abducted and so Pendergast once again goes in search for what is most precious to him. But this time, he is up against a diabolically clever foe who has been waiting and nurturing a new breed of soldiers to recapture the world and it no easy task even for someone like Pendergast, especially when he is faced with someone who may be even cleverer than him.

As a new chapter opens in Pendergast’s already twisted life, he must once again rely on his friends, Vincent D’Agosta of the NYPD, his ward Constance Green and newly resurfaced side-kick Corrie Swanson from a previous adventure, Still Life with Crows, to keep him grounded even as he prepares to face his deadliest enemy. For someone whose methods are uncannily similar to his brother Diogenes has surfaced and is committing a series of murders in full view of the security cameras. Who can it be? And what other secrets will Pendergast unearth?

I can only go on for so long without giving everything away. In this instance, I’m happy to say that there will be more books of which White Fire will be out at the end of the year. Hurray! Although Two Graves is the finale of the Helen Trilogy, it is also a new beginning for Pendergast with the discovery of the mysterious twins, Alban and Tristram. Parts of Two Graves reminded me a little too much of Huxley’s Brave New World but I strongly suspect there were similar real life scenarios wherever enterprising Nazis managed to escape to.

And I so want you all to go and find out for yourselves. I can’t reiterate enough how much I enjoy Preston & Child’s novels featuring Agent Pendergast. They’re polished, thrilling and packed full of fascinating historical and cultural information. A thousand times better than a lot of thrillers out there.