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A review by organchordsandlightning
Two Graves by Douglas Preston
3.0
Well, I am glad the Helen trilogy is coming to an end so we can move onto something else. It feels harsh, but this was a pretty lackluster ending to a pretty lackluster trilogy.
1: Helen dies, like, fifty pages in. Fine, okay. We've spent the past two books trying to prove that she's alive so they can reunite, but fine.
2: Connie somehow has less to do in this novel than the previous one, and yet she makes up a sizable subplot. Were P + C trying to keep their novels doorstop-size?
3: For god's sake, Constance's doctor spends like a quarter of the book trying to prove to himself something that we, as the readers, knew since Constance's introduction.
4: There's an unintentionally amusing scene where Laura invites Viola, the woman Pendergast has spoken with max six times in the series. Pendergast says 'hello, this is what I'm planning to kill myself with. Please get out.' And she does. VIOLA.
5: Vincent takes a very weird stance here, where he knows that Pendergast is suffering big-time and he's suddenly like 'nah, I won't visit' but eventually comes around after he gets a couple other visitors. Also, he totally shits the bed and betrays Pendergast later, which drives me crazy because it's not even the biggest secret he's kept on Pendergast's account.
6: A THIRD SET OF TWINS, ladies and gentlemen, except these are Pendergast's secret children which REALLY does not endear the readers to Helen any more. One of them is evil, natch.
7: Pendergast finding an island of Nazis and blowing up their entire deal really made me yearn for the part in the series where Pendergast was, like, investigating a weird murder in the middle of nowhere.
And I think that's where I hope the series will go next - tone it back down and turn Pendergast from a spy hero to a detective again.
1: Helen dies, like, fifty pages in. Fine, okay. We've spent the past two books trying to prove that she's alive so they can reunite, but fine.
2: Connie somehow has less to do in this novel than the previous one, and yet she makes up a sizable subplot. Were P + C trying to keep their novels doorstop-size?
3: For god's sake, Constance's doctor spends like a quarter of the book trying to prove to himself something that we, as the readers, knew since Constance's introduction.
4: There's an unintentionally amusing scene where Laura invites Viola, the woman Pendergast has spoken with max six times in the series. Pendergast says 'hello, this is what I'm planning to kill myself with. Please get out.' And she does. VIOLA.
5: Vincent takes a very weird stance here, where he knows that Pendergast is suffering big-time and he's suddenly like 'nah, I won't visit' but eventually comes around after he gets a couple other visitors. Also, he totally shits the bed and betrays Pendergast later, which drives me crazy because it's not even the biggest secret he's kept on Pendergast's account.
6: A THIRD SET OF TWINS, ladies and gentlemen, except these are Pendergast's secret children which REALLY does not endear the readers to Helen any more. One of them is evil, natch.
7: Pendergast finding an island of Nazis and blowing up their entire deal really made me yearn for the part in the series where Pendergast was, like, investigating a weird murder in the middle of nowhere.
And I think that's where I hope the series will go next - tone it back down and turn Pendergast from a spy hero to a detective again.