The Cabinet of Dr. Leng

Agent Pendergast, Book 21

By: Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

Narrated by: Jefferson Mays

Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

How can you stop a serial killer who has been dead for a hundred years?

The nail-biting new thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling Agent Pendergast series. FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast always wants to protect his protegee Constance Greene from harm. But, against all odds, Constance has found a way to travel back in time to New York City in the late 1800s to embark on a dangerous quest: to stop the era's most infamous serial killer, Dr. Enoch Leng from bringing his plans to fruition. If she does, she can finally prevent the events that led to the shocking deaths of her sister and brother. Meanwhile, in present-day New York, Agent Pendergast is desperate to reunite with Constance before she gets stuck in the past forever... but can he find a way before it's too late?

©2023 Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (P)2023 W. F. Howes Ltd

Wow. What a story and such quick pace

Amazingly well written.
This narrator is better than the one for Bloodless.
We can’t get back the original narrator who was the right person with the right accent. This narrator is a close match. Although he needs to practice the southern accent.

Just a few gripes

Yet another splendid book in the Pendergast series. So why only the four stars? There are a few reasons for this, and it may contain small spoilers.

Firstly, while the storyline was as gripping as any other Pendergast book, the book ends a bit abruptly. The authors even added an addendum to apologise for this, and were it not for the apology, I would have rated the book 3 stars. It is that distracting. The problem with leaving books so open-ended is that I think authors often forget that one reads many other books, too, not just theirs. So when the follow-up book arrives a couple of months down the line, one has lost the storyline to some extent. This was indeed the case for me between the book and its predecessor. It took me a while to "get back" into the story. I am sure it will be the case while waiting for the conclusion of the next book that will hopefully conclude this sub-series within the Pendergast universe. This is one of the reasons that I prefer to look back at older series so I can read them without having to wait for releases.

Secondly, and this has been a thing that has been bugging me for a while, is the snobbery that these books are often written in. There is a period in the book (party scene) where the authors seem to exhaust their French and where one has to endure a non-stop onslaught of French terms. While these phrases do set the scene and create an atmosphere, I fear the authors had gone too far. In a few pages, it went from "beau geste" to "robe de gaulle" to "amour propre" and so on. Simply too much for my taste, but others may disagree.

Finally, as the series continues, I am realising more and more how much I dislike the character of Constance. For a so-called wise woman, she makes too many stupid decisions. The character's decisions at times do not feel congruent with her backstory. I really would like her to be less the focus of the storyline and more of Pendergast. In fact, this was yet another book where Pendergast does not feature prominently.

Setting these gripes aside, it was actually a very good book. I can only hope we don't have to wait too long for the next book to conclude this mini-series within the series.

PS. The narration by Jefferson Mays was outstanding.

can't wait for part 2

Great story, well read, and I absolutely love this series. Part 2 can't come soon enough