Rating: 
Summary: A creepy page-turner.
Review: Medicine Creek, Kansas. Nothing exciting happens here, nothing changes, and there is never any crime...until now.A body has been found, mutilated beyond recognition, and positioned elaborately in a corn field. The local police rules this as a single murder, until Special Agent Pendergast arrives and declares this the work of a serial killer. Within hours the small town is swarming with reporters, and the local residents are in fear for their lives. Pendergast begins investigating the crimes with only the clues of crows(a twisted secret you need to read the book to understand) to help, but when he teams with Corrie Swanson he will come face to face with an evil he is not prepared for. 'Still Life With Crows' is a creepy thriller that starts off fast and keeps the twists coming. The surprises start as the plot develops, and as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place you are held captive. Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child pack their story with thrills and chills while maintaining a cinematic flair reminiscent to that of 80's horror films. I couldn't stop reading once the book was started, and the ending blew me away. An entertaining summer read that will be surely land on the bestseller list's, 'Still Life With Crows' further proves Preston and Child masters of original horror tales. Nick Gonnella
Rating: 
Summary: Another Rip-Snortin' Fun ride with Agent Pendergast
Review: While not as all-out entertaining as 'The Cabinet of Curiosities' I found 'Still Life With Crows' to be another page turner that kept me entertained throughout. I was beginning to believe that 'Relic' couldn't be topped, and no matter how many fun & thrilling novels Preston & Child wrote, their first seemed destined to be also their best--but then came 'Cabinet' and although they may not have exceeded 'Relic' they sure tied it for sheer thrills and all-out entertainment. So when I found that Special Agent Pendergast would make another appearance, I was absolutely SOLD. No sooner has a body been found in rural Medicine Creek, Kansas than our Special Agent makes a timely arrival. Everything about this murder screams 'Serial Killer' but the locals of this tiny community are quick to reject this as NOBODY in this town would do something THIS horrific. Pendergast isn't so sure. He uses his influence as an FBI Agent to muscle his way into the investigation and soon he has acquired the help of a teenage girl who has a less than perfect reputation in the town she hates. Another mysterious event occurs when a local's dog is found killed--but the method is what creates such confusion. Normally Serial Killers stick with their methods of murder, and this one breaks all previously known 'standards' set forth by FBI investigators over the course of thousands of murders. Another interesting side-line is an ancient massacre that happened in the mid 19th Century involving a calculated and devious attack on some particularly nasty cowboys by some Indians who (so the story goes) appeared like ghosts on a plain that supposedly nobody could sneak up on, and slaughtered the guilty group of 45 men who had been wreaking havoc amongst all the Indian tribes nearby...killing them all. Thus began the famous 'Curse of the Forty-Fives' in Medicine Creek. What does this ancient event have in connection with the murders of the present? Finding out is half the fun. A few unexpected characters end up falling victim to the mysterious killer, which surprised me because generally speaking, only the non-essential people get axed in stories such as this. Although surprising, it added to the overall unpredictable nature of this great story. The last 50 pages are a blur as you can't turn the pages fast enough, however--the events leading up to the major climax are somewhat slow in comparison with most of Preston & Child's previous novels. This does NOT mean 'Still Life With Crows' is NOT a great book...but when compared side-by-side with the other novels this talented duo have written, it comes up slightly short. For fans of these novels, it is a definite MUST READ, and who knows? YOU may enjoy this tale more than some of their other works--but what I believe most of us will agree on is that they write absolutely WONDERFUL Suspenseful novels--and Special Agent Pendergast is easily one of the best protagonists in modern fiction. I VERY much look forward to their next thriller.
Rating: 
Summary: A relaxed effort not a winner
Review: I guess the authors took a break on this one--it is certainly not up to their best. The plot is given away way too soon and is rather boring. They really have to stretch to tie up the loose ends by the last few pages, and one wonders if earlier they intended to write something else but got tired and just decided to use unconvincing explanations for why certain objects were used in the killings. This gets 2 stars just for the appearance of Special Agent Pendergast--though he too is on vacation in this one. Perhaps the writers should spend longer than a year coming up with new ideas. Given the authors' hot and cold reputation, one may want to wait for reviews before purchasing their next book.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't wait to get back to it!
Review: Beginning writers can learn a lot from STILL LIFE WITH CROWS. Preston and Child take a farfetched plot and make it believable by working overtime on research. They show us an imaginary town in Kansas beset by a "serial killer," but they also spend extra time teaching us about tornadoes, turkey processing and spelunking.
I was also impressed by how seamlessly Preston and Child work this information into the plot line and it's hard to tell where Preston leaves off and Child begins, their styles are so compatible.
Add two great characters to the mix and you have a page turner on your hands. FBI agent Pendergast shows up in town to investigate the murder of a relic hunter whose body is found in a small clearing in a corn field surrounded by crows skewered on ancient Indian arrows. Blond-haired Pendergast wears expensive black suits and imported shoes; his deductive abilities will remind you of Sherlock Holmes, but his idea of a Watson is young Corrie Swanson, an eighteen-year-old misfit with purple hair and metal dangling from every orifice. He hires her and her ancient soot-belching Gremlin to drive him wherever he needs to go.
There were a couple of things about the book that didn't measure up. One was the serial killer with the super human strength. Preston and Child's explanation doesn't adequately explain where it came from. Also, the relationship between Corrie and Pendergast is a bit iffy. We never do find out what Penergast's motivation is. That said, I have to give this one five points for entertainment value, if nothing else. I couldn't wait to get back to it.
Rating:
Summary: Fast paced and spooky
Review: Preston and Child deliver another great story in "Still Life with Crows." I won't recap the story line, since so many reviews before mine, and undoubtedly after mine, have done so. Instead I will concentrate on why I have rated this book with 5 stars. While I raced through the pages, I could visualize a movie playing out in my head. There are so many scenes that are film-worthy, with plenty of spooky settings, chases, and jump-out-at-you moments. There is a bountiful cast of colorful characters and many vignettes of small town life. There are scenes inside a turkey slaughterhouse and in a spectacular series of caves. There are scenes of gruesome violence as well. Rarely have I found a book where both the killer and the investigator are equally creepy and quirky, but that is indeed the case here. FBI agent Pendergast, who has made an appearance in other Preston/Child books, is a mysterious man of many talents. His knowledge of the arcane puts Sherlock Holmes to shame. His preference for the finer things of life recalls the better side of Hannibal Lecter. He selects as his local sidekick a Goth teenager with purple hair who is as much a loner as he is, and together they make an unusual team. If you are a Pendergast fan, you will certainly get your money's worth in this book. As for the killer... well, I won't spoil the story, but be assured that this is someone who is quite different from the average psychopath. Although the whodunnit is uncovered well before the end of the book, it is not until the last two pages that the whydunnit is revealed. And that revelation is a stunning one, although its premise might be a bit far-fetched. This is a wholly entertaining, suspenseful, and captivating book, and once the story is at full speed you will have trouble putting it down.
Rating:
Summary: And the Pendergast "plot" thickens!
Review: I waited such a long time for this book but I admit the hardcover was more than I wanted to pay. Then I found an excellent used copy and I'm so glad I did. I've read all the other books in the series and I love Pendergast being the main character. And the "Ghost Warriors" aspect was fascinating! But there's still the big Pendergast mystery. Who is he really? I hope there will be another sequel out on this one!
Rating: 
Summary: Really fell apart at the end
Review: I have read other books by the authors and enjoyed them, but this is the first Special Agent Pendergast book I have read. He is a great character and I was completely enthralled with him and the book in general, up until the end (last 70-80 pages or so). There were a few hokey elements earlier, but these were easily overlooked because everything else was so good. But the end (which I will not reveal)was just stupid, ridiculous, unworthy of these authors...really a huge disappointment. How could they have come up with something like this? I will read Cabinet of Curiosities next, though, since Pendergast is such a fascinating character, and that book is considered their best (or close to it) by their fans. However, with the bad taste of the ending of this book left in my mouth, I won't be quite so eager for their future offerings. I wouldn't want to invest so much emotional energy in a book and be so let down at the end again.
Rating:
Summary: The apotheosis of the Hardy Boys?
Review: I confess I almost never read this type of book--my bookstore was giving away pre-publication promotional books with other purchases and I happened to pick this up for free. So if you're a fan of this particular genre--whatever the genre is, precisely (I'm not sure--gothic thriller detective fantasy?)--you might want to skip my comments. On the good side, it's literally a "page turner"--I read about the last 300 pages in one long sitting, through one sleepless night. On the other hand, it strikes me as an exceedingly strange genre. It's like the apotheosis of the Hardy Boys, complete with caves and Indian relics and a crashing storm accompanying the denoument (I kept half expecting to come upon Fenton Hardy tied to a cot). The writers are extremely skilled at writing narrative, but there's virtually no interior action whatsoever, and the narrative is so absurdly implausible that, to me at least, it works against the moods of foreboding and and peril that the authors are trying to elicit. This may be de rigeur for the genre, I don't know. In its own way, taken on its own terms, the book is relatively seamless until the ending, where I think the authors stumble badly, finally tipping over into the unintentionally absurd. (I won't be more specific to avoid exposing the details to those who haven't read it yet.) Actually, I suppose we had reached that point at about the time the Rolls-Royce appears, but that's being too lit-critical. Intellectually I don't resonate very much to the "monster" archetype. I think it goes back to millions of years of hominids living amidst noctural predators who really posed a danger--it's certainly a strong lizard-brain instinct. But we're past that. The endless parade of monsters in all manner of pop entertainment has gotten more than stultifying. As far as this one is concerned, hadn't we moved past one-dimensional antagonists at least by the time of _Phantom of the Opera_ or _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_? Never mind John Gardner's _Grendel_. I would have been grateful for just a little shading. The book hits about a dozen notes of stock plotting--classic Sherlock Holmes, the rich-poor/city-country contrast, the disaffected rebellious teenager story, the small-town sheriff angle, classic western, a sort of new-agey transcendentalism, standard horror fare, the monster story, the overwrought Hollywood ending, etc., with liberal doses of the pathetic fallacy slathered over everything. My verdict, probably atypical, is that I both enjoyed reading this book, and was also left profoundly unsatisfied when I had finished with it. Clever as it is, richly well-written as it is, it just doesn't offer anything remotely like the payoff I need from literature. It's like a very fancy meal that leaves you hungry. My reaction, also probably atypical, is that I'm glad I experienced the "gothic thriller" genre, but I also won't be back anytime soon.
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: This book isnt Relic, but it is great, I love the Pendergast character and think anytime they use him is good. I like murder mysteries and this was a very good one. Very graphic and suspenseful. I recommend this to any fans of murder mysteries, thrillers, etc. I thought it was a very good book and you should check it out. I dont know how you can rate this below a 4. Go get this from your local library, I couldnt put the book down, I would skip doing homework to read this book (that doesnt happen often). The characters have great depth, you see into their worlds and it is great.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting. Enjoyable read.
Review: While not necessarily their best work with Special Agent Pendergast, this one is a good read. As to be expected the writing is sharp, detailed, and really puts you in the action. There are some instances though where one has to say that Preston and Child are reaching just a bit, a little too much technique shows. That being said, the novel is a really good one. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
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