She Treads Softly: Angel of Vengeance

Friday, August 9, 2024

Angel of Vengeance

Angel of Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
8/13/24; 352 pages
Grand Central Publishing
Pendergast #22

Angel of Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child is the very highly recommended intricate thriller that continues the story started in The Cabinet of Dr. Leng that ended with a cliffhanger. Angel of Vengeance is absolutely not a standalone thriller. The four Pendergast novels in the Dr. Enoch Leng series are: The Cabinet of Curiosities, Bloodless, The Cabinet of Dr. Leng and finally Angel of Vengeance.

Readers have been anxiously awaiting Angel of Vengeance to conclude the story arc that left FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, Constance Greene, and D'Agosta in an alternate version of NYC in the late 1880's where Constance is hoping to not only protect her siblings from Dr. Enoch Leng, but to defeat him entirely. Unknown to Leng, Diogenes, Pendergast’s brother, appears crossing through the time portal unexpectedly, offering to help for his own reasons. No spoilers here; read the series!

The narrative immediately starts out at a frantic pace and keeps it up throughout the novel with plenty of action, plot twists, and surprises along the way. If you have been waiting for this novel and know the characters and their backstories, you will not be disappointed. Thanks to Grand Central Publishing for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.