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Just days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum's dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human. But the museum's directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders. Museum researcher Margo Green must find out who - or what - is doing the killing.
Nora Kelly, a young archaeologist in Santa Fe, receives a letter written 16 years ago, yet mysteriously mailed only recently. In it her father, long believed dead, hints at a fantastic discovery that will make him famous and rich - the lost city of an ancient civilization that suddenly vanished a thousand years ago. Now Nora is leading an expedition into a harsh, remote corner of Utah's canyon country, but what she unearths will be the newest of horrors.
The largest known meteorite has been discovered, entombed in the earth for millions of years on a frigid, desolate island off the southern tip of Chile. At four thousand tons, this treasure seems impossible to move. New York billionaire Palmer Lloyd is determined to have this incredible find for his new museum. Stocking a cargo ship with the finest scientists and engineers, he builds a flawless expedition. But from the first approach to the meteorite, people begin to die....
At 12, Gideon Crew witnessed his father, a world-class mathematician, accused of treason and gunned down. At 24, summoned to his dying mother's bedside, Gideon learned the truth: His father was framed and deliberately slaughtered. With her last breath, she begged her son to avenge him. Now, with a new purpose in his life, Gideon crafts a one-time mission of vengeance, aimed at the perpetrator of his father's destruction. His plan is meticulous, spectacular, and successful.But from the shadows, someone is watching. A very powerful someone, who is impressed by Gideon's special skills.
A centuries-old, cursed pirate's treasure, valued at over $2 billion, lies deep within the treacherous waters off the coast of Maine. Men who have attempted to unearth the fortune have suffered gruesome deaths. Will a high-tech expedition meet the same fate?
Guy Carson is a brilliant scientist at GeneDyne, one of the world's foremost biochemical companies. When he is transferred to Mount Dragon, GeneDyne's high-security genetic engineering lab, his good fortune seems too good to be true.
Carson soon finds that it is. He learns that GeneDyne geneticists are tinkering with a common virus with an eye on the enormous profit to be had from a cure for the flu. Their cure involves permanently altering DNA in humans. What's more, Mount Dragon harbors another secret that puts the world at horrifying risk.
Just days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum's dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human. But the museum's directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders. Museum researcher Margo Green must find out who - or what - is doing the killing.
Nora Kelly, a young archaeologist in Santa Fe, receives a letter written 16 years ago, yet mysteriously mailed only recently. In it her father, long believed dead, hints at a fantastic discovery that will make him famous and rich - the lost city of an ancient civilization that suddenly vanished a thousand years ago. Now Nora is leading an expedition into a harsh, remote corner of Utah's canyon country, but what she unearths will be the newest of horrors.
The largest known meteorite has been discovered, entombed in the earth for millions of years on a frigid, desolate island off the southern tip of Chile. At four thousand tons, this treasure seems impossible to move. New York billionaire Palmer Lloyd is determined to have this incredible find for his new museum. Stocking a cargo ship with the finest scientists and engineers, he builds a flawless expedition. But from the first approach to the meteorite, people begin to die....
At 12, Gideon Crew witnessed his father, a world-class mathematician, accused of treason and gunned down. At 24, summoned to his dying mother's bedside, Gideon learned the truth: His father was framed and deliberately slaughtered. With her last breath, she begged her son to avenge him. Now, with a new purpose in his life, Gideon crafts a one-time mission of vengeance, aimed at the perpetrator of his father's destruction. His plan is meticulous, spectacular, and successful.But from the shadows, someone is watching. A very powerful someone, who is impressed by Gideon's special skills.
A centuries-old, cursed pirate's treasure, valued at over $2 billion, lies deep within the treacherous waters off the coast of Maine. Men who have attempted to unearth the fortune have suffered gruesome deaths. Will a high-tech expedition meet the same fate?
Guy Carson is a brilliant scientist at GeneDyne, one of the world's foremost biochemical companies. When he is transferred to Mount Dragon, GeneDyne's high-security genetic engineering lab, his good fortune seems too good to be true.
Carson soon finds that it is. He learns that GeneDyne geneticists are tinkering with a common virus with an eye on the enormous profit to be had from a cure for the flu. Their cure involves permanently altering DNA in humans. What's more, Mount Dragon harbors another secret that puts the world at horrifying risk.
Former naval doctor Peter Crane is summoned to a remote oil platform in the North Atlantic to help diagnose a bizarre medical condition. But when he arrives, Crane learns that the real trouble lies far below on "Deep Storm", a stunningly advanced science-research facility built two miles beneath the surface on the ocean floor. The top-secret structure has been designed for one purpose: to excavate a recently discovered undersea site that may hold the answers to an ancient mystery.
What fire bolt from the galactic dark shattered the Earth eons ago, and now hides in that remote cleft in the southwest U.S. known as Tyrannosaur Canyon?
Gideon Crew - brilliant scientist, master thief, intrepid adventurer - is shocked when his former employer, Eli Glinn, vanishes without a trace, and Glinn's high-tech lab Effective Engineering Solutions shuts down seemingly overnight. Fresh off a diagnosis that gives him only months to live, Crew is contacted by one of his former coworkers at EES, Manuel Garza, who has a bead on one final treasure hinted at in EES's final case, the long-awaited translation of a centuries-old stone tablet of a previously undiscovered civilization: The Phaistos Disc.
"Greetings from the dead," declares Maxwell Broadbent on the videotape he left behind after his mysterious disappearance. A notorious treasure hunter and tomb raider, Broadbent accumulated over half a billion dollars' worth of priceless art, gems, and artifacts before vanishing, along with his entire collection, from his mansion in New Mexico.
Rising out of the Nevada canyons, Utopia is a theme park so technologically advanced as to be awe-inspiring. But serious mishaps are starting to cause concern, and things turn from bad to worse when a group of mercenaries infiltrates the park's computerized infrastructure, holding the entire park hostage. The engineer who designed the park now must find a way to save it.
High in the Andes, Dr. Henry Conklin discovers a 500-year-old mummy that should not be there. While deep in the South American jungle, Conklin's nephew, Sam, stumbles upon a remarkable site nestled between two towering peaks, a place hidden from human eyes for thousands of years. Ingenious traps have been laid to ensnare the careless and unsuspecting, and wealth beyond imagining could be the reward for those with the courage to face the terrible unknown.
Sam Cleave, reporter for a small newspaper, has seen better days. After his partner was killed during an undercover investigation, he lost his passion for work and living. But when a resident of a nearby assisted living home is tortured and murdered in a barbaric manner, he starts investigating. He is especially intrigued when a mysterious box is given to him that belonged to the dead man, but he needs help to interpret what it means.
Hovern Bog. People live in terror of it - especially the residents of Fenchurch St. Jude, the little village located at its edge. They think of it as a living being. When 2,000-year-old bodies are recovered from the bog, perfectly preserved, it is the discovery of a lifetime for archaeologist David Macauley. But close examination of the corpses reveals a curious fact: all were cruelly, mysteriously murdered, gnawed to death by some unimaginable creature.
Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He's also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as part of the off-the-books black box Orphan program, designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence assets - i.e. assassins. He was Orphan X. Evan broke with the program, using everything he learned to disappear.
An inexplicable explosion rocks the antiquities collection of a London museum and the race begins to determine how it happened, why it happened, and what it means. Lady Kara Kensington's family paid a high price in money and blood to found the gallery that now lies in ruins. Her search for answers leads Kara and her friend Safia al-Maaz, the gallery's curator, into a world they never dreamed existed.
Manhattan. Les ouvriers d'un chantier de démolition s'affairent parmi les gravats, lorsque le bulldozer se fige soudainement devant l'horreur du spectacle qui apparaît ; des ossements humains. L'enquête menée par Pendergast, du FBI, l'archéologue Nora Kelly et le journaliste William Smithback établit qu'il s'agit des restes de trente-six adolescents, victimes d'un tueur en série, le Dr Leng, ayant sévi à New York vers 1880.
Court Gentry is known as The Gray Man - a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible, and then fading away. And he always hits his target. But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness. Now, he is going to prove that for him, there's no gray area between killing for a living-and killing to stay alive.
For the first time in unabridged audio!
A small Kansas town has turned into a killing ground. Is it a serial killer, a man with the need to destroy? Or is it a darker force, a curse upon the land? Amid golden cornfields, FBI Special Agent Pendergast discovers evil in the blood of America's heart.
Preston & Child know how to push my "creepy" buttons. Very good.
I would choose a different narrator. Narrator David Colacci did a much better job in "The Relic" - the first Pendergast novel.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful
I wasn't very impressed with this one. Their books are starting to get a bit formulaic. It's like Scooby Doo: start the book with some intrigue and a hint that something paranormal is happening, then the good guys catch the bad guy and they realize the prosaic, pseudoscientific reality. A bit bland overall.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
I've been listening to the Pendergast books in order and except for the second one they've gotten better and better.
It's hard to say for sure how much better the story is because the narration on this book is so much better than the last two. But, what really made this one stand out form the earlier books is the depth of the characters. In previous novels I've been frustrated by the simple, stupid, bureaucratic top cop concept. In this book there are officers that do some not brilliant things but they aren't just motivated by glory or covering their own asses as in previous novels. The interactions feel more true to life and the storyline itself, while slightly gory, keeps you trying to figure out what's going on.
The setting is also unique in this book. Overall it was just much easier to get my head into it and it kept my attention throughout. I will be listening to the next book in the series.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful
Still Life With Crows
by Preston & Child
WI/NWI-4 An old story well-told is always worth listening to again. The setting of the book, taking you into the corn, and the flawless and entertaining performance make this book definitely WI--worth it!
Plot-2 The plot of the book has been used a lot before, even from these authors themselves! It is predictable, and when the big "reveals" came up, I had known what was going to happen almost from the beginning.
Characterization-4 There were a lot of characters so it can be hard to remember the guy who just got eaten, but the main ones were developed well. Their super hero FBI agent was great, the sheriff is the small town hero and well done, and they have a character arc in the young girl who found herself. There is a bad guy and a monster. Gr8!
Violence-5 Huge, amazing, constant violence. Don't leave home without it.
Grossness-5 This is the main feature of this book. People and animals are killed, flayed, boiled, pulled limb-from limb and terrorized and tortured.
Sex-0 No sex, I'm afraid.
Supernatural Elements--2 They hint at supernatural abilities in the FBI agent Pendergast, that he can bring time up to the present. But they don't elaborate.
Crossing the Line-4 To me, crossing the line is brutal murdering animals (especially dogs), or children. Stephen King is the worst offender. Here, they hurt dogs and murder them, so they definitely cross the line of decency. If you are sensitive, skip this book.
Setting-5 This is so well done. I felt throughout the listen that I was in Kansas, in the deep corn, the caverns, in hot summer. A great escape.
Performance-5 Scott Brick is amazing. I can't get enough of him. He can change voices so fast that no mapping occurs--I can't hear the last voice in the new one. He never tires. What a pro!
19 of 23 people found this review helpful
Once again all the cops are red neck idiots and they need Aleysius Xingu Leng Pendergast to set them straight. When push comes to shove the cops become sniveling little cry babies. (I sure hope Preston or Child get that parking ticket straightened out.)
If you are a die hard Pendergast or P/C fan, then you will not like this review so do yourself a favor, mark not helpful and move on.
This starts out slow like most P/C novels. At chapter 17 it gets real good and stays that way to chapter 38. Then like most P/C novels there is a four hour chase scene, to come to a conclusion that everyone, but an idiot from a small town in Kansas has figured out. That's if you go with the cliche way in which Kansas small town people are treated in this book. All the characters are miserable, not a happy person in the town.
From the way the small Kansas town is described, I do not believe Preston and Child have ever been in Kansas. The timeline is somewhere after 2002, yet everybody is driving AMC gremlins and Hornets. AMC went out of business in 1987. If you go to Kansas, as I do once a week, you will find they drive mostly Ford and Chevy pickup trucks, especially in farming communities as this is suppose to be. The town is surrounded by cornfields and they want this company to come in and plant evil genetically modified corn to provide more jobs. The main employer is a Turkey processing plant. Hello P&C, Turkey Processing Plants are built next to Turkey Farms, not cornfields. If you have a Turkey Processing Plant then you will also have a large Mexican American Community or Illegal Aliens. You might have a diner in town, which serves meat and potatoes as describe, but you will also have at least one Mexican Restaurant. It's sign will be hand painted in Green and Red. A girl who lives in a trailer park will not have a neighbor with built in lawn sprinklers. The church will not be Lutheran it will be Catholic.
Pendergast does his going back in time thing again. It is explained as a thing called Chongg Ran, which is taught in Tibet. Essentially if you do lots of research and study this Chongg Ran, you will be able to go into a trance and go back to any time and you will see what should have happened. According to Preston and Child, Chongg Ran has never been published it is a secret teaching and is only taught orally to other monks and Preston and Child. In other words they made it up. May be in the next book Pendergast will do some Remote Viewing.
I did give this three stars and it does have some great parts, it is just to bad it is surrounded by Cliches, Long Chase scenes and boring miniscule descriptions about law enforcement. No one cares about the politics they keep putting into these books.
About the narrator. I have made plain before how I feel about Scott Brick. It is hard to explain his style. You know how you have listened to some narrators who are monotone and every line is read the same boring way. Brick is exactly the opposite. Every sentence is read as it is the most exciting thing in the world. In one part he reads about Pendergast picking up a phone and putting it back in the cradle. It is read like The Eagle Has Landed!!!!. Sixteen hours of everything is stupendously exciting is draining. Having said that SB was probably the best person to read this, as he really captures the whole everyone is a miserable character aspect.
33 of 42 people found this review helpful
What made the experience of listening to Still Life with Crows the most enjoyable?
The scene was interestingly set with great characters
What did you like best about this story?
Pendergast. A classic Holmes-esque detective, with Amy being his Dr Watson
What about Scott Brick’s performance did you like?
He played the characters excellently.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
At first yes, but it struggled a bit in the last quarter
Any additional comments?
I really enjoyed the book, but when they were all running around in the caves at the end it became a bit incredible and farcical, and I was struggling to cope with all the new late introductions to the list of characters. The final unveiling of the villain was a bit hard to swallow. The epilogue was a nice return to form though
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
This is the first Preston and Child book I have listened to and it is also the first time I found myself jumping at shadows and peeking around corners because of an odd sound. You are at the edge of your seat within minutes of listening and the characters became personal to me within a few chapters, a first key of great storywriting and Scott Brick ( not my first time listening to) brings the storywriting alive with the storytelling.
Creepy, eerie, funny and real, the story is easy to picture as it is being told wrapping you up in the puzzle ( if not trying to figure it out before being told) The only drawback is sometimes ( I have since read 2 other P and C books) the endings can get a little drawn out leaving the listener to roll their eyes and say outloud get on with it already.
BUT! This is a definate great book to listen to.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
I have read and/or listened to every Preston/Child book. And Crows is one of my favorites, only out ranked by Cabinet of Curiosities. I was happy to see that they finally had an unabridged version available, and with Scott Brick you can't go wrong. Pendergast is the one of best characters in modern thrillers, here he shines. Great Read and Listen!!!!
29 of 38 people found this review helpful
The premise for this entire story is rather silly. The set of circumstances that would allow such an event are far-fetched, to say the least. I had read a couple of the Pendergast novels prior to getting this one. I found those to be good, light tales for the purpose of diversion. I found myself unable to suspend belief with this one though. Its one saving grace was the narration by Scott Brick. I'm sure devotees of the series will love it...others may want to skip this one.
10 of 13 people found this review helpful
this novel was the best suspense audio book that I have listened to this year. If I could give it 6 stars, I would. The plot was well written, twisting and turning, keeping you on the edge of your seat...never boring...the characters were well developed and the descriptive powers of Preston and Childs brought everything to life for me....i.e. after the turkey packing plant description, I'm not sure if I'll ever eat turkey again! I had a clear picture in my mind of the whole setting and happenings. The narrator, Scott Brick was also excellent. I never got tired of his voice and he performed all the characters without flaw. If you are looking for a unique detective story that keeps you listening until the wee hours of the night, then this is the book for you. This is how all audio books should be!
enjoy!
19 of 27 people found this review helpful
it is easy to listen to this one, good plot and is still very entertaining
A killer afoot with a complex modus operandi, a massive storm and Agent Pendergast!
This is the next in the series and puts Pendergast front and centre along with a bunch of very grisly murders.
The plot works for the most part, and it's fast paced and scary. However, the murderer reveal and end seemed a bit off, but doesn't spoil the story. Recommended for Pendergast fans and goths!
A really good listen - the narrator Scott Brick is very good at the various voices and change of character, does Pendergast really well. All must read.
I read a bunch of reviews on line and this one seems like a fan favorite!
If this is what happens when Pendergast goes on vacation; I really wouldn't want to go on a cruise with him.
The endless quiet rural Kansas landscape becomes an isolating, terrifying place.
A small town is gradually dying, economically, and now, through its population. While the council try to bring money back in through a grant with the university genetic corn program, something freaky is stalking the populace, bumping them off in apparent ritualistic styles.