Cold Vengeance
Agent Pendergast #12
Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Read by Rene Auberjonois

Hachette Audio
February 7, 2012 / ISBN: 1611135338
Mystery /Horror / Audiobook (Unabridged) / 12 CDs / 11 hours and 58 minutes
Amazon

Reviewed by Jo Rogers

Preston and Child strike again with Cold Vengeance,as chilling a tale of murder and revenge as I've ever heard. Once again the novel features Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast. Again, they rise to the high standards they've upheld in the past.

Pendergast went hunting with his brother-in-law, Judson Esterhagy, a physician whose sister Pendergast had married. Each of them loved the other more than anyone or anything else in this world. When Helen was murdered by a lion in Africa, Pendergast swore he would find and punish her killer. He spoke not of the lion, but the man who'd put blanks in Helen' rifle and sent the lion her way.

They followed a stag into a huge morass in Scotland. Just as Pendergast was about to pull the trigger to take the stag down, Esterhagy told him to drop his rifle. He told Pendergast he was the man who put the blanks in Helen's gun. Now, knowing Pendergast would eventually figure everything out, he was going to kill Pendergast before he could get him. He knocked Pendergast into the surrounding quicksand. As Pendergast sank to his death, Esterhagy told him Helen was still alive!

No, this is not the end of the story, as Vincent D'Agosta found when he went to find Pendergast. The tensions rise all through the book until the shocking end. The characters, the plot, and the settings all combine to create one whale of a book! Preston and Child are in top form in this chiller. It is also superbly read by René Aubérjonois.

Listen to Cold Vengeance and remember that revenge is bittersweet at best.

Reviews of titles in this series

The Cabinet of Curiosities, #3    [audio 1] [audio 2]
Still Life With Crows, #4    [book] [audio]
Brimstone, #5     [book] [audio 1] [audio 2]
Dance of Death, #6    [book]
Book of the Dead, #7   [book] [audio]
Wheel Of Darkness, # 8   [book] [audio]
Cemetery Dance, #9    [book] [audio]
Fever Dream, #10    [book] [audio]
Cold Vengeance, # 11    [audio]
Two Graves, #12 [audio]