Still Life With Crows

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: I found this to be a fantastic book. The suspense is breath taking. With each chapter - wondering what the heck will happen next - you become more and more taken with the story. You try to figure it out on your own and second guess the story - but once you get to the end and it all makes sense and becomes clear - you marvel at this writing team. Bravo.. I am a Pendergast fan for life!

Rating:
Summary: Mildly entertaining thriller
Review: This book is far short of the entertaining read that "Relic" provided. Although it has its moments of suspense and horror, the resolution proved somewhat disappointing. The thing that I found absolutely the most interesting part of the book with a truly horrifying and chilling "wow" factor was the very, very end when the killer's behavior is explained. How frustrating to have to read the entire book before I hit a point where I was stunned. When I read a book, especially by the Preston/Child team, I expect to be stunned repeatedly throughout. Nonetheless, "Still Life With Crows" provides a diverting - if not exceptional - read. You'll be entertained but not bowled over.

Rating:
Summary: From All the Hiding Places
Review: This is the fourth book by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child in which FBI Special Agent Prendergast has played a special role. In the last book (The Cabinet of Curiosities) he has been promoted to a main character. Prendergast is an almost over-cultured southern gentleman who is almost a classic model of the aesthete. He has an irritating superciliousness and an unorthodox approach that inevitably puts him at odds with the powers that be.

In Still Life With Crows, an intriguing series of killings draws Prendergast to the little town of Medicine Creek, Kansas. The killings are bizarre - a dead woman arranged in a ring of valuable arrows, a dog killed just for its tail, disemboweled and stuffed corpses. Equally eerie are the towns old legends of the Curse of the Forty-fives - a story of a ghostly band of Indians that arose from nowhere and killed the white men who were hunting them.

Prendergast inserts himself in the investigation, drafting Corrie Swanson, the town's sole Goth and trouble-maker as his chauffer and assistant. An unlikely relationship that grows slowly as Corrie's suspicions relax, almost stealing center stage from the murders.

As they have done repeatedly, Preston and Child demonstrate excellent story-telling skills building both characters and tension, filling a plot with details, creating a horror story out of cornrows and stalactites. They do have one habitual flaw, though. By halfway through the book the reader can make an intelligent guess about the nature of the murderer. Identity and motive are still a mystery, but the writers simply drop too many hints. They try to make up for this by using the last 100 pages for a frantic, high tension pursuit, but some damage cannot be undone.

Of course, this flaw is forgivable because Preston and Child are high quality writers. If you like both mystery and suspense, then you may not even notice the problem. I lean more towards the puzzle solving aspects, and so feel the solution shouldn't have been as obvious as it was. Regardless of this, I enjoyed the book, as will all but the true sticklers for deductive fiction.

Rating:
Summary: a good read
Review: felt this was the second best novel written by this duo behind thunderhead; well-written and entertaining, however, i felt the story could have been shortened by about 50-100 pages and it would have been just as good; definitely recommend this book

Rating:
Summary: They've done it again
Review: This is just another great book by Preston-Child two of the most reliable writers out there. The use of Agent Pendergast as the main character for a book was great and we learned alot about the man and still have alot of questions. This was a great book that had you guessing until the end. The use of the cornfield and other settings was well done and also the character development was well done. You actually cared about some of the characters as they were well-developed and fleshed out. Preston-Child has shown no signs of slowing down and I look forward to their next book.

Rating:
Summary: Pendergast is back!
Review: Without a doubt, the man known only as Pendergast is one of the most interesting characters I've come across over the years. The fact that he's a repeating character in the Preston and Child books only makes him more interesting because each book he's in gives you a bit more insight as to what makes him tick.

This book is a really good read, with great characters, an interesting plot, a great protagonist in Pendergast and some really big twists. Anyone into mysteries will enjoy this book. And because Pendergast is in it, it should be a treat for any Preston and Child fan. The reader gets some more glimpses of what type of man he is, but even more questions are raised about him and his past. Which makes me wait with baited breath for the next one he may appear in.

Definetly worth checking out with an ending that'll have you saying 'Ohhh!!! I get it!'

Rating:
Summary: Another good story from team Preston and Child
Review: I am a big fan of the books that Preston and Childs have written. I enjoy how they mix history and science to form an interesting story. They also create entertaining characters such as FBI agent Pendergast along with realistic dialog and character interactions. This book picks up where their last book (The Cabinet of Curiosities) left off, but you do not need to read the past title to understand this one. In this story, Pendergast is on "vacation" and decides to investigate a peculiar murder in Kansas. The story begins a little slowly as compared to their past works and is focused mainly on Pendergast developing relationships with the small town citizens. The killings continue and are intertwined with a Civil War era battle with indians. Ultimately, the story and the killer were not as intriguing as in "The Cabinet of Curiosities", but it is an entertaining book and I fully recommend it. There is an unexplained storyline in the book-possibly foreshadowing for their next title?

Rating:
Summary: a fast paced thriller that you can't put down...
Review: lincoln child and douglas preston have outdone themselves with this book. the last novel i read like this was salems lot by stephen king. once you start, its hard to put it down. i can't wait to read their next book. i just hope it is as good as this one was.

Rating:
Summary: Completely Enthralling
Review: This book, the new one by the brilliant duo of Douglas Preston and Licoln Child who've collaborated on such hits as "Reliquary", "Relic", and "The Cabinet of Curiosities", have done it again with the bestselling "Still Life With Crows".
"Still Life With Crows" is a thriller that pulls no stops. You will find yourself having a white-knuckled grip on the book while holding it (that is if you can stop reading long enough for your right brain to make this little discovery).

FBI Special Agent Pendergast makes another show in this novel, however without the sometimes dubious help of Bill Smithback. Pendergast mysteriously appears in Medicine Creek, Kansas (like he appears everywhere). There have been a series of grisly murders going on in this, small, dusty town. The victims are mutilated and arranged in nauseating tableaus in the cornfields of which Medicine Creek seems to be full. Pendergast is almost immediately cold-shouldered by the small town's constable, Sheriff Hazen. But, as always, Pendergast prevails, hiring a teenage misfit as an escort whom you grow to love throughout the novel's spine-snapping pace. The denouement, like always in the Douglas/Child novels is made up of near tediousness and maddening suspense deep under the town of Medicine Creek. Buy this book and do yourself a favor.

Rating:
Summary: Death, Dismemberment and Duststorms
Review: This book is a great read. I found that it was masterfully plotted, tightly written and completely engrossing. I had to stay up at night to finish the book because i could not bear to put it down, it was that good.
Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston have created a chilling masterpiece of horror/crime scene fiction. I have not read any of their other books, but with the close of this one- i will be ordering their others very soon.

One of the great things about this book is the writing style. At times, i found myself almost wishing that the book would hurry up and get to a resolution quickly, then, just as quickly- i would change my mind and wish that it would slow down so that i had more time to absorb the tiny clues and minute details and hints dropped along the way.

This book is plotted with intensity and a careful attention to detail and setting. The sharp reader will pick up hints and clues as mentioned earlier, unaware that they too will be filing them away, only to have them burst to the forefront as they are revealed as important threads in the tapestry that the authors are weaving for us.

One of the most memorable charachters in the literary world is in this book, special agent Pendergast of the FBI. The creation of this enigma was an inspired stroke of genius. You cannot aptly place him into any specific mold, and I found myself "weirded" out by him at times too- just like the other people in Medecine Creek! He is THAT well written.

Overall, this book does a great job of pulling the reader into the world that is Medicine Creek Kansas and engrossing them in the environment that surrounds that parched midwestern town. I felt the opressive heat of the summer and the rage of the duststorm that blasted through the town. Great use of setting and environment the engage the reader and take them to that special place where novels cease to become just words on a page.

The authors of this book are truly talented and i look forward to exploring their other works. This book is a great read and a wonderfully frightful delight to behold. Not for the faint of heart, but great for those who have the stomach for it!!