FBI Special Agent Aloyshious Pendergast returns in Cemetery Dance, a macabre story of senseless murder, religious cults, and greed.  This time, the dead man was killed by a man who had supposedly committed suicide two weeks previously.  The victim, journalist William Smithback, Jr., was also an acquaintance of both Pendergast and Homicide Detective Vincent D'Agosta.  Smithback had been attacked and killed by Colin Fearing, an unemployed actor who lives in the same building as Smithback.  The murder happened on the first anniversary of Smithback's marriage to Nora Kelly, an anthropologist at the Museum of Natural History.

Nora has also been attacked by Fearing and lies in a semiprivate room in the hospital.  Though she was the only patient in the room when she went to sleep, she’s awakened by the sound of moaning from the bed across the room.  The modesty curtain has been drawn around the bed, but she can see the silhouette of someone rising from the bed and reaching for the curtain.  Is it Fearing, come to kill her too?

Pendergast and D'Agosta are determined to solve this puzzle.  There is no way a dead man could stab someone to death, is there?  But, if the legends of the mansion in an area of the old Gold Coast are true, the cult that illegally occupied the mansion created zombies. Did they?  Or was this an attempt to conceal what the cult was really doing in there, creating zombies and turning them loose to kill?

In the true style of Preston and Child, the story grabs your attention from the beginning and keeps it through the very bizarre end.  The action is nonstop and the suspense never lets up, the hallmark of good writing.  The sense of reality is strong because one of the characters that figured prominently in earlier books was killed and remains dead.  The end is strange, but not unbelievable.   Horror fans, you'll love this one.  Don't miss it.

Reviews of other titles in this series

The Cabinet of Curiosities, #3   [audio 1 ]   [audio 2 ]
Still Life With Crows, #4     [book] [audio]
Brimstone, #5    [audio 1] [audio 2] [book]
Dance of Death, #6    [book]
Book of the Dead, #7    [audio]
Wheel Of Darkness, # 8    [book] [audio]
Cemetery Dance, #9    [book] [audio]
Fever Dream, #10    [book] [audio]
Cold Vengeance, # 11 [audio]