When headless bodies start showing up in New York City, the police are thrilled to have the help of FBI Special Agent Pendergast to help. Especially when the bodies belong to some of the wealthiest and most tightly guarded of the city's elite: the daughter of a tech billionaire, a mob lawyer, a Russian business mogul rumored to be an arms dealer. The fact that these individuals could be killed is one matter; the fact that they were decapitated and their heads now missing is another.
Add to that pressure a series of newspaper articles speculating that it's New York's one percent that are being targeted by this serial killer, "The Decapitator," and the police feel stymied. Agent Pendergast doesn't believe that the killer is motivated by the net worth of his victims, but he hasn't shared his alternate theories with the NYPD, and Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta feels like he's about to lose his head finding this killer.
City of Endless Night is the latest in the Agent Pendergast series, and the first one I've gotten a chance to read. Based only on this book, I'm not sure I'd read more of this series. As a stand-alone, I thought this was awkward. Mostly, I didn't get a chance to know Pendergast as well as I had hoped, as most of his work was left off the pages and he refused to Lieutenant D'Agosta what he was thinking as the investigation went on. I know Douglas Preston from other books, and I've read what other reviewers thought of this novel (they're mixed) and about the series in general (there is so much love for it), so I will definitely give this series another try. I look forward to finding out more about Agent Pendergast and his Sherlock Holmes-like methods of solving crime.
While I had some issues with this novel, it was also incredibly well written and tightly plotted. I especially liked the commentary on modern journalism, and I thought that story line was particularly well done.
I decided to try the audio version of City of Endless Night, and that I will recommend very highly. It is narrated by Rene Auberjonois, who I have loved since my childhood, watching him on Benson. I didn't stay very long for Deep Space Nine, but I will still watch any episode of Boston Legal I stumble across. He is an accomplished actor, and now he is also my new favorite audio book narrator. And I realized as I heard him introduce himself that I have never heard anyone else say his name correctly (I know I can't). But his narration is spot on and the reason I binged the almost 11-hour book in two days.
If you're already a fan of the Pendergast series, read on, knowing you may be a little disappointed. If this is your first foray into the series, I'd recommend starting somewhere else. But if you do want to read City of Endless Night (which you should read), try the audio version. It's a beautiful experience.
Galleys for City of Endless Night were provided by Grand Central Publishing through NetGalley, with many thanks, but I bought the audio version myself, thanks to Audible.