Cemetery Dance

by: Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Published by: Grand Central Publishing

Reviewed by Patricia E. Reid

Readers, get set to lose a popular character in the Preston-Child novels. William Smithback, Jr. dies in the first few pages of Cemetery Dance. Nora Kelly, Smithback’s wife, barely escaped from the crazed murderer. Nora thinks she recognized the killer as Colin Fearing, a neighbor in the building.

Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta is in charge of the case and takes great care in checking out the evidence even though he feels it is an open-and-shut case since Nora can identify the killer. D’Agosta is surprised when Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast appears on the scene. He is even more surprised when Pendergast presents a death certificate showing that Colin Fearing has been dead for ten days.

It seems the impossible has happened. A murder has been committed by a dead man. Is there really such a thing as zombies? It seems there can be no other answer when dead people keep appearing as though alive, and with violent intentions.

Pendergast even goes so far as to consult Aunt Cornelia as well as call in a friend from his childhood who is an expert on cases such as that of Colin Fearing. Nora insists on joining in the investigation–and finds a group living in a secluded area in Manhattan that is conducting animal sacrifices. Gaining information on this very secretive group is dangerous, to say the least.

Pendergast somehow manages by the end of the book to explain the unexplainable. The ending is one that came as a complete surprise but satisfied a lot of my curiosity about the events in this novel.

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have written a number of novels with Special Agent Pendergast. If you have read the previous books, you will run across characters that you have read about before but it is not necessary to read the previous books to enjoy Cemetery Dance.

Armchair Interviews says: A 5-star read from this writing team.

Author’s Web site: http://www.PrestonChild.com