Rating: 
Summary: Another great read from Preston & Child
Review: Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's seventh novel has been a long time coming, but it was well worth the wait. It represents, without question, their best writing to date. As always, the scene is set with great skill, but now their talent for set piece drama has evolved into excellent characterization and superbly subtle plot development.It would be difficult for me to describe the story without spoiling the plot, but I can safely say that "The Cabinet of Curiosities" is a diabolically twisted thriller. What starts out as a seemingly standard, albeit very creepy, serial killer mystery rapidly develops into something far more bizarre, and vastly more sinister. I read a lot, and it is rare that I am caught completely off guard by plot twists, but with one hundred pages to go I was hit with not one, but two! The authors deftly throw the reader off guard at a key moment, which makes the concluding chapters absolutely breathless. As I alluded to earlier, the writing in this novel is outstanding; "The Cabinet of Curiosities" is much more thoughtful than their earlier novels, and significantly darker. While still showing their roots in the "techno-thriller" genre, Preston and Child have branched out into considerations of love, madness and morality. Whereas their earlier novels certainly told a great story, and contained tragically flawed characters, this novel makes an excellent stab at exploring the heart of darkness in a much more methodical, dare I say, literary, way. Of particular note in this regard is the character of Pendergast. For those readers who are unfamiliar with "Relic" and "Reliquary", he is an FBI agent with remarkably refined tastes, and equally unorthodox methods. The best way I could think to describe him would be if you turned Hannibal Lecter into a good guy (while is in no way insinuating that he was ripped off, which he clearly wasn't). At any rate, he was always an intriguing character, I would even go so far to say that he was the authors' best to date, but he was also somewhat two-dimensional. Mystery is one thing, but it can come at the expense of character development. "In Cabinet of Curiosities", however, Pendergast has been given an enormous depth of personality, and his background has been revealed in such a way that deepens the mystery surrounding him even as it injects him with a sense of pathos. He is now a fully realized, and immensely interesting character that I look forward to encountering again. Ultimately, "The Cabinet of Curiosities" will make a great beach read for the summer, but it is much more than that. It is a well-crafted, very suspenseful and deeply thoughtful novel that should ranks among the best popular fiction of the year, and I recommend it highly. Finally, my praise for this novel should in no way be construed as disparaging to the authors' prior books; I have bought, read, re-read, and enjoyed the all. It is just that in this novel, Preston and Child have taken their writing to a whole new level and I felt it bore mentioning. If you haven't read their other novels do yourself a favor and order them at the same time as this one. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Thrills and chills
Review: For some fans, pulses may quicken on hearing that Preston and Child's latest is set in the New York Museum of Natural History, setting for "Relic," their first (and still best) chiller thriller. The authors also bring back enigmatic FBI agent Pendergast to lead a team consisting of archaeologist Nora Kelly (from "Thunderhead") and her boyfriend, borderline obnoxious news reporter Bill Smithback ("Relic" and "Thunderhead"). But the horror originates outside the museum on a construction site where the bulldozers uncover a charnel house of bones, a 19th century basement where young workhouse residents were butchered most horribly. And things get curioser when the killings start up again - same m.o. but surely not the same killer? Kelly's analysis of bones and clothing and some research in the museum's grand and musty stacks and archival storage suggests a motive for the serial killings that is as fantastic as it is horrible. To say more would spoil the fun of getting there. The authors steep their story in the scientific curiosities and crackpots of the last century and the historic sites they occupied. As always they keep the action moving and their characters simple yet dynamic. Not another "Relic," but great fun nonetheless.
Rating: 
Summary: Not my favorite
Review: I have read many of the Preston/Child books with this one being the least impressive. This book provides plenty of suspense, however I felt let down by the ending. If you would like to read a good book by these guys then read either Relic or Thunderhead(my favorite) you won't be dissappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Read It!
Review: Excellent thriller. A cross between Michael Crichton and Stephen King. I borrowed this book from my grandmother and was hooked from page 1. Just the right mix of horror, suspense, and mystery. If you love psychological thrillers, this book is for you. This was the first Preston-Child book I read, but it won't be the last!
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book by Preston & Child!
Review: This is about the eighth book I have read by Messrs Preston & Child and it was the best of the bunch! This book grabbed me from the start and was very difficult to put down. Once again we are back at the New York Museum of Natural History with Special Agent Pendergast and reporter Smithback from Relic and Reliquary and Nora from Thunderhead as the main characters.
The book takes place not that long after the end of Thunderhead. Nora has relocated to New York and has taken a job doing research for the museum. She gets a sudden visit from Special Agent Pendergast who requests that she accompany him to a lower Manhattan site where there is an excavation going on for putting up a building. Reluctantly, she accompanies him and they learn that a chamber was unearthed that has a lot of skeletons; victims of a 19th century serial killer. The chamber is under the site that once had a cabinet of curiosities which was another name for a museum (however, it was one that charged a fee kind of like the Ripley's Believe it or not museums).
The police and the construction company want the chamber cleared immediately so they can continue construction on the site. Pendergast wants Nora to use her archeological expertise to examine the remains and let him know anything that she can about them. This opens up a whole can of worms because the construction company fears that the site will be declared an historical landmark and they will be prevented from building. They put pressure on the mayor and the museum to have Pendergast and Nora stopped.
Nora tells all this to Smithback (now her boyfriend) who writes an article in the Times describing the site and suggesting a cover-up. Almost immediately victims are killed in the same manner as the victims from the site and police blame Smithback for his article saying that he created a copycat killer.
The book continues and we find that the past has a great deal to do with what is happening in the present and understanding the past is the only way to save more victims going forward.
With this book we finally get a look into Pendergast's personal life and his childhood. I had found him annoying in the prior books and almost bumbling. In this book we appreciate his intellect and find him to be a real hero-type.
The authors also seem to borrow some tricks used by Jack Finney in his From Time to Time books.
Rating:
Summary: A good yarn by two master storytellers
Review: If you like Preston and Child, this book is a treat. Creepy characters and a plot that will keep you guessing. This is a great beach read.
Rating: 
Summary: Skip this book!
Review: This was a contrived, jumbled, nonsensical tale with a protagonist who could not possibly be believed. Going back in time through a so-called Buddhist technique to discover places and incidences that he could not possibly have known in real time, and interacting with people in this dream is just one of the inane avenues in this book. His superhuman abilities to take care of shattered flesh is also absurd. Another was the way the book ended where the bad guy just happened to be destroyed at just the right time by something resembling an act of God. Why mention a real building, The Dakota, while fictionalizing the American Museum of Natural History, and giving it a non-existent address. So many stereotypical characters, such as the kindly and competent but insensitive reporter, an antagonist with superhuman strength, the dumb cop, etc. Very sloppy. And the ending, the reason for the original bad guy to have done what he did, made no sense at all. All in all, this book was disappointing, and had so many instances of non-credible events, that its worth as a good read was lost.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but not great
Review: 'THE CABINET OF CURIOSITIES' is one book in a series from the writing team of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child that seems to have a pretty big cult following. The premise for this book in particular interested me, when an underground charnel is found during construction of a new high-rise, FBI agent Pendegrast's interests are aroused and when new victims begin turning up seemingly linked to the 19th century murders Pendegrast begins the hunt for a potential copycat serial killer and must find the link between the two killers. Sounds interesting enough right? Well it was, until the end, which really disappointed me. I was completely engrossed in the first two thirds of this book; however, I found some aspects of the final chapters of the book to be a little too implausible and other aspects to be a little too easy. This could easily have been a five star book, in my opinion, but the ending just did not do it for me. So while I thought that this book was good, it was not as good as I tought it could have been so it only gets three stars from this reviewer.
Rating:
Summary: Completely unputdownable!!!!!!
Review: This was an awesome story. Once I started reading, I just couldn't stop. I lost a lot of sleep. It's one of the best books I've read in a while.
I read The Relic just prior to reading Cabinet and I think Cabinet is, by far, a much better story.
I was especially pleased when I found the www.prestonchild.com site. They provide additional information and an alternate ending that was never published. I think I like the alternate ending better than the real ending. I'd like to hear what other's think.
Great book. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Cabinet of curiosities
Review: I thought this book was really chilling and exciting. It made chills run up and down my spine during some parts of the book. It was pretty gross how the bodies of the victoms were mutilated in the past and present killings. I don't see how the liquid in the back of their heads made him live longer and ive wondered how it did. It was a great, scary and exciting book to read. I'd recommend this book to anyone who hasnt read it, because it's an awesome horror/scary books I would talk about the end but i would'nt want to ruin the book for anyone, read it it's worth it.
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