The Cabinet of Dr. Leng

by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

Overview

Following the events of Bloodless, the "exciting" and "nail-biting" new thriller in Preston & Child's #1 bestselling series will once again feature FBI Special Agent A. X. L. Pendergast and Constance Greene.

Against all odds, Constance has found a way back to the place of her origins, New York City in the late 1800s, and sets off on a quest to prevent the events that lead to the deaths of her sister and brother, and stop Manhattan’s most infamous serial killer, Dr. Enoch Leng of the seminal Pendergast novel The Cabinet of Curiosities, before his nefarious experiments come to fruition.

Meanwhile, in present-day New York, Pendergast is desperate to find a way to reunite with Constance—but will he find a way before it’s too late?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538736807
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	01/17/2023
Series:	Pendergast Series
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	6,728
File size:	2 MB

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.

Place of Birth:

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Education:

B.A., Pomona College, 1978

Website:

http://www.prestonchild.com

Editorial Reviews

This book is a lot of fun. The writing is crisp and lightly ornate, as usual, and the story is inventive and suspenseful."—Booklist

"An engaging adventure . . . entertaining, with a plot that twisted in unexpected ways . . . These are seasoned writers who know how to weave a good story and leave you wanting more."—The Mystery Site

PRAISE FOR BLOODLESS

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

—Kirkus

"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

“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)

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

From the Publisher

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)

The authors are masters of the procedural with a gothic flair.”

Associated Press

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

12/09/2022

In Agent Pendergast series book 21 (book three of the "Leng Quartet," following Bloodless), the brilliant, eccentric, opium-addicted FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast is back "reading" criminal minds, but he's devastated that his ward (and love) Constance Greene has left him. Using a time machine, she has traveled to a parallel universe in 1880 New York City to prevent the murder of her siblings. They imprisoned her brother on the ominous Blackwell's Island, and her sister will become a victim of Dr. Enoch Leng—a serial killer surgeon who performs experiments on the poor. Pendergast must save Constance, but the only way is to travel back in time. In the present, Pendergast's NYPD friend Vincent D'Agosta investigates the murder of a Lakota curator of Native American artifacts at New York's Museum of Natural History. When Pendergast's former FBI partner, Armstrong Coldmoon, investigates the death of a Lakota Sioux man on the Rosebud Reservation, it's soon clear that the murders are related. VERDICT This dual timeline tale will appeal to fans of police procedurals, historicals, and magical realism, and those intrigued by quantum mechanics. But beware the dreaded words "to be continued"—readers won't know the ending until book four of the quartet.—K.L. Romo

Library Journal

2022-11-29
Constance Greene, ageless protégé of FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, travels back to 1880s New York—the time and place of her childhood—to save the world from the evil Dr. Enoch Leng and prevent him from killing her two siblings.

Taken off the meanest streets of New York by Leng when she was 9, Constance was given an experimental elixir by him that succeeded in dramatically slowing down her aging process. More than a century later, now under Pendergast's wing, she is only 20 in physical terms. After belatedly discovering that the essential ingredient of the elixir was taken from the spines of young women, including her older sister, she uses the time machine that appeared in Bloodless (2021) to return to old stomping grounds—where, bizarrely, she encounters her own 9-year-old self. Posing as an Eastern European aristocrat, she insinuates herself into New York society to get next to the falsely celebrated Leng—who has taken the elixir himself—with the aim of killing him. Meanwhile, desperate to protect her from harm—and prevent her from getting stuck in that alternative dimension—Pendergast has the one-use-only time machine retooled. In a largely unconnected plot, his Native American FBI colleague Armstrong Coldmoon investigates two murders connected to the theft of precious Lakota artifacts from a South Dakota reservation. Played as a straight mystery, this part of the novel is efficiently done, if not as much fun as the SF stuff, but it ultimately seems like a time-killing device for the authors. After more than 400 pages, they go the "To Be Continued" route, apologizing for the "inconclusive ending." Now they tell us.

A mixed bag that leaves the reader hanging.

Kirkus Reviews