Blue Labyrinth

September 8, 2014
The uneven 14th Aloysius Pendergast thriller (after 2013’s White Fire) from bestsellers Preston and Child gets off to a dramatic start. The eccentric FBI agent is enjoying a quiet evening reading poetry at home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, when his ward, Constance Greene, answers a knock at the door, only to discover the bound corpse of one of his twin sons, Alban, who was revealed to be a serial killer in a prior series entry. Pendergast’s search for Alban’s murderer takes him to California’s isolated, eerie Salton Sea, which is skillfully evoked by the authors. Meanwhile, Pendergast’s longtime friend and inside man on the NYPD, Vincent D’Agosta, investigates the bludgeoning death of a technician at the New York Museum of Natural History. Less creepy and less suspenseful than the best entries in the Pendergast series, this installment also suffers from unimaginative explanations for the two crimes. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME.

Two cases intertwine and hit home for FBI agent Pendergast who, in his own slightly misanthropic way, sets out to solve them. Rene Auberjonois makes this book what it is. No characters have remotely similar vocal qualities; all shine--from a nasal-sounding lab researcher to various police officers and a foreign official. But it's Pendergast whom Auberjonois really embraces with a consistent narration. The character's voice is methodical and controlled. At one point, while trying to get close to a source, he imitates an entirely different voice, and Auberjonois shifts smoothly between Pendergast's temporary identity and the source. M.B. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

February 2, 2015
In this exciting 14th series entry (after White Fire), FBI special agent Aloysius X.L. Pendergast is shocked to discover the corpse of one of his sons—an evil twin, Alban—on his doorstep. His investigation of the murder leads him to an unused silver mine near California’s Salton Sea, where he’s exposed to a paralyzing agent that, over the remaining two thirds of the novel, causes his gradual debilitation. With dwindling physical resources he tries to discover who would want to kill him and his son and why. Meanwhile, his ward, Constance, his friend NYPD Lt. Vincent D’Agosta, and Dr. Margo Green try to solve a murder in the New York Museum of Natural History that might lead to the elusive antidote. After narrating the last nine adventures, reader Auberjonois has perfected Pendergast’s deceptively soft southern accent and D’Agosta’s gruff bellow. He also has the valuable knack of presenting women’s voices as feminine without sounding false or forced. As one might expect from a complex, always-in-motion, event-packed novel, its character count is high. As for the over-educated, intemperate young detective, the snarling crooked cop, the gravel-voiced master criminal, the cackling desert rat, the museum technician with a stuffy nose, and the Portuguese street thug, Auberjonois has them all
covered. A Grand Central hardcover.