Two Graves

After his wife, Helen, is brazenly abducted before his eyes, Special Agent Pendergast furiously pursues the kidnappers, chasing them across the country and into Mexico. But then, things go terribly, tragically wrong; the kidnappers escape; and a shattered Pendergast retreats to his New York apartment and shuts out the world.

But when a string of bizarre murders erupts across several Manhattan hotels-perpetrated by a boy who seems to have an almost psychic ability to elude capture-NYPD Lieutenant D'Agosta asks his friend Pendergast for help. Reluctant at first, Pendergast soon discovers that the killings are a message from his wife's kidnappers. But why a message? And what does it mean?

When the kidnappers strike again at those closest to Pendergast, the FBI agent, filled anew with vengeful fury, sets out to track down and destroy those responsible. His journey takes him deep into the trackless forests of South America, where he ultimately finds himself face to face with an old evil that-rather than having been eradicated-is stirring anew... and with potentially world-altering consequences.

Confucius once said: "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, first dig two graves." Pendergast is about to learn the hard way just how true those words still ring.

A Wild Ride

I love the Prendergast mysteries. They're not probable or sensible. They're largely character driven. They wouldn't be quite so wonderful if the characters weren't so marvelous. They're complicated, difficult, odd and very very interesting.
This tied up a number of story lines, about his wife, about his ward. I wouldn't call it great literature. but it was a lot of fun.

Thank God it's Over

Preston and Child must have known this series was running thin. Aside from an interesting plot line in Brazil, the other pieces seem to wrap up too cleanly and quickly. For the first time, I was able to figure out the last four hours before I heard them.

If you've listened to the entire series, this audio book won't have you wishing for another. Even the authors sound like they've had enough. As usual, narration was excellent.

Preston & Child "jumped the shark" with this one

I am a HUGE fan of Preston & Child and their Pendergast series. I finished this one only because I am such a big fan and Rene Auberjonois is such a master narrator. I will certainly buy the next book in the series - but if it is as far off the mark as this one is, it will be my last. The reviews on this book, which I read the other day, long after I'd purchased mine since I had it on auto-purchase, were clearly wildly mixed. Some love it and others are feeling like I do - pretty disappointed. I won't go into all the craziness that was in this book, but suffice it to say that it didn't live up to everyone's expectations for what we want from our favorite FBI agent (and those who write about him).

This book was a big letdown

This is the third book in the Helen Pendergast trilogy. Usually, in a good trilogy the 1st and 3rd books are the best, with the 2nd acting as a bridge between the two. I liked both of first two books but this last one, Two Graves, was really disappointing and not at all what I've come to expect from these authors. The main storyline was very scattered and too far fetched even for a Pendergast book. The side stories had little or no bearing to the main story. The Constance Greene side story made some sense but the girl (whose name is escaping me, which should tell you something) and her father? What was the point of that. I think it's also a bit lame to have Constance pining for Pendergast. That is just lazy in my opinion.

Thinking about it now it's almost as if the authors felt they had more than just the Helen story to tie up so they decided to throw all the loose ends they had in this last book to finish things off.

This is the only Pendergast book I've ever had a negative review for so I sincerely hope there will be more to come to redeem the series.

Note on the narrator, Rene Auberjonois did an excellent job. I'd definitely read more read by him.

Kind of like a season finale of a soap opera

I love all the Pendergast series. That said, this was as if the authors dropped pages of characters all over the floor and swept them up together in a haphazard fashion. This was the last of the "Helen" series, which played out like a soap opera with evil twins and not really dead characters, unknown children appearing and disappearing, and characters from other novels seemed to just drop in for a cameo. A seriously overly dramatic Pendergast went against his own character here, as well, which isn't logical. In these novels we are always asked to suspend our sense of reality a bit, but we usually do it willingly. This was unwilling. And all the answers to all the characters' life questions were unceremoniously answered as though it were a rush to the grand finale of the series. I had figured it was just that until the very ending, which seemed to leave one tiny window cracked open for a sequel in this continuing series, which has continued true to form so far. It was almost a parody; but not quite. As it was these authors and Pendergast, it was worthwhile--just not their best by far.