Bloodless (Pendergast Series #20)

by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

Overview

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: Agent Pendergast faces his most unexpected challenge yet when bloodless bodies begin to appear in Savannah, GA.

A fabulous heist:
On the evening of November 24, 1971, D. B. Cooper hijacked Flight 305—Portland to Seattle—with a fake bomb, collected a ransom of $200,000, and then parachuted from the rear of the plane, disappearing into the night…and into history.

A brutal crime steeped in legend and malevolence:
Fifty years later, Agent Pendergast takes on a bizarre and gruesome case: in the ghost-haunted city of Savannah, Georgia, bodies are found with no blood left in their veins—sowing panic and reviving whispered tales of the infamous Savannah Vampire.

A case like no other:
As the mystery rises along with the body count, Pendergast and his partner, Agent Coldmoon, race to understand how—or if—these murders are connected to the only unsolved skyjacking in American history. Together, they uncover not just the answer…but an unearthly evil beyond all imagining.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538736708
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	08/17/2021
Series:	Pendergast Series
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	57,090
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

The thrillers of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child "stand head and shoulders above their rivals" (Publishers Weekly). Preston and Child's Relic and The Cabinet of Curiosities were chosen by readers in a National Public Radio poll as being among the one hundred greatest thrillers ever written, and Relic was made into a number‑one box office hit movie. They are coauthors of the famed Pendergast series, and their recent novels include Bloodless, The Scorpion’s Tail, Crooked River, Old Bones, and Verses for the Dead. In addition to his novels, Preston writes about archaeology for the New Yorker and Smithsonian magazines. Child is a Florida resident and former book editor who has published seven novels of his own, including such bestsellers as Full Wolf Moon and Deep Storm.

Readers can sign up for The Pendergast File, a monthly "strangely entertaining note" from the authors, at their website, www.PrestonChild.com. The authors welcome visitors to their Facebook page, where they post regularly.

The thrillers of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child "stand head and shoulders above their rivals" (Publishers Weekly). Preston and Child's Relic and The Cabinet of Curiosities were chosen by readers in a National Public Radio poll as being among the one hundred greatest thrillers ever written, and Relic was made into a number‑one box office hit movie. They are coauthors of the famed Pendergast series, and their recent novels include Bloodless, The Scorpion’s Tail, Crooked River, Old Bones, and Verses for the Dead. In addition to his novels, Preston writes about archaeology for the New Yorker and Smithsonian magazines. Child is a Florida resident and former book editor who has published seven novels of his own, including such bestsellers as Full Wolf Moon and Deep Storm.

​Readers can sign up for The Pendergast File, a monthly "strangely entertaining note" from the authors, at their website, www.PrestonChild.com. The authors welcome visitors to their Facebook page, where they post regularly.

Place of Birth:

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Education:

B.A., Pomona College, 1978

Website:

http://www.prestonchild.com

Editorial Reviews

06/28/2021

A prologue to Preston and Child’s disappointing 20th thriller featuring FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast (after 2020’s Crooked River) depicts the notorious unsolved 1971 plane hijacking by D.B. Cooper in the Pacific Northwest. In the present, Pendergast and his partner, Armstrong Coldmoon, have been dispatched to Georgia to investigate several baffling murders. As the victims were drained of blood through one of their multiple stab wounds, the killer is dubbed the Savannah Vampire. Pressure to close the case quickly comes from a boorish U.S. senator, who fears bad press about the crimes will imperil his reelection bid. Pendergast’s ward, Constance Greene, assists by befriending a reclusive hotel owner rumored to have prolonged her life by drinking human blood. How the plane hijacking ties in with the current action will surprise readers, but the lack of real scares, an outlandish solution to the central mystery, and a lead who’s more action hero than Sherlockian sleuth render this a lesser series entry. X-Files fans will best appreciate this one. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

03/01/2021

In November 1971, D.B. Cooper hijacked a Portland-to-Seattle flight, collected a $200,000 ransom, and parachuted into oblivion. Fifty years later, bodies drained of blood are beginning to stack up in the streets of Savanah, GA, raising fears that the city's legendary vampire is real. Agent Pendergast is about to discover the link between these stories. With a 250,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal

★ 2021-06-16
FBI Special Agent Pendergast and his cohorts face great peril as they try to find out what’s bleeding a Georgia city dry.

In 1971, the mysterious hijacker D.B. Cooper parachutes from a commercial airliner with a bundle of cash in the remote northwest and is never heard from again. A half-century later, Aloysius X.L. Pendergast and colleague Armstrong Coldmoon are sent to Savannah, Georgia, to investigate a “most peculiar incident”: a body has washed ashore with nary a drop of blood left in the corpse. A reader’s first thought might be What’s that got to do with an old hijacking?Leave it to the imaginations of Preston and Child to eventually make the delightfully strange connection. Pendergast looks every bit the stereotypical undertaker, not at all fitting the FBI mold. He brings along his adult “ward,” Constance Greene, who brings her stiletto everywhere she goes. Meanwhile, bloodless bodies accumulate. Who could possibly be committing these frightful atrocities? And why only in Savannah? That one’s easy: because it’s a spooky old city “with its gnarled trees and crooked houses,” and everything about the plot is spooky and surreal. A film crew prepares to create a phony documentary in a graveyard using smoke machines and showing callous disregard for the dead. A scheming U.S. senator frets that the rapid escalation in ghastly violence will hurt his reelection prospects, and he pressures the FBI for a rapid solution. Unfortunately, the killer makes an unholy mess of the city, sucking out its Southern charm along with plenty of blood. He—she—let’s settle on it—turns the tale into one of more horror than crime. Without Pendergast’s perspicacity, Coldmoon’s competence, and Constance’s cojones (figuratively, of course), that old city of mint juleps would be a smoking hole in the ground. And readers wouldn’t learn about D.B. Cooper’s fate. The authors’ imaginations run unfettered as they travel to unearthly locales, but in the end it comes down to beleaguered Savannah.

All of Pendergast’s adventures are weird and wonderful fun, and this is no exception.

Kirkus Reviews

PRAISE FOR BLOODLESS:

"Leave it to the imaginations of Preston and Child... Spooky and surreal [and] wonderful fun."

—Kirkus

Praise for CROOKED RIVER


"Exciting. Nail-biting. Quality storytelling."—Publishers Weekly

"Preston and Child know how to craft compelling stories that are both baffling and surprising. The cast of characters feels authentic and moves the story forward in unexpected ways. . . the authors are masters of the procedural with a gothic flair."—Associated Press

"[Pendergast] still remains the most charming, intelligent, cool, and creepy agent ever written. . . Read this. As fast as possible. Preston & Child have once again created the unimaginable and you just can't miss it!"—Suspense Magazine

"Agent Pendergast is back and better than ever."—The Real Book Spy

"The best mystery series going today. Preston and Child display a true masters' touch. This is riveting reading entertainment of the highest order."—Providence Journal

“Non-stop action, and much to amuse, shock and horrify the reader.”—Fresh Fiction

"BLOODLESS is their 20th novel featuring one of the most unique protagonists in all of thriller fiction, Agent Aloysius Pendergast, and may rank as one of the finest books they have ever penned together.... BLOODLESS is a pure pleasure to read and is like candy to thriller fans — candy from which readers will drain every ounce of flavor in pure delight."—BookReporter

"Preston and Child, expertly straddling the line between reality and the paranormal, have fashioned a neo-gothic masterpiece."—The Providence (RI) Journal

“Bloodless is rife with inventive scenarios, amusing exchanges (especially between oft-impatient Coldmoon and eternally placid Pendergast) and tantalizingly spooky mysteries, topped off with a gloriously wild finale that is as action-packed as it is memorable.”—BookPage (Starred Review)

From the Publisher