A review by patrick6367
Angel of Vengeance by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

5.0

This was a five star read for about 90% of the book so I'm going to go ahead and give it five stars overall. As usual the prose, pacing, plotting and action rushes along, sweeps you up and keeps you turning pages long into the night. Yet this particular Pendergast novel both delighted and irritated me more than perhaps any other. I can't vent or crow about it without throwing out major spoilers. I don't normally do spoilers in my reviews. I guess I won't now. Rather, I'll say this: the authors are 22 books into this series and I'm sure it's becoming difficult to keep things fresh and interesting without turning things upside down/sideways etc and letting characters grow and change a bit. There was a big dollop of that in this book and I'm OK with it overall. In fact there is a quasi-redemption arc here that I absolutely loved. There are also a few instances of an old line character doing incredibly stupid things that are completely out of character (or so it seems to me). One of the big draws of the Pendergast books is both the protagonists/villains are actually smart and don't do dumb stuff. So having one of the characters break that mold was super irritating. The redemption arc was sooooo much fun though it more than compensates for the stupid stuff. I'll warn you that, although this book wraps up this story-line, the ending is more than a bit ambiguous. The epilogue I hope is a massive clue about where book #23 is going.