Baffling serial killer stalks tense ‘City’

BOOK REVIEW “CITY OF ENDLESS NIGHT” By Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Grand Central Publishing, $28) Grade: A-

FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast returns to assist the NYPD with a baffling case in “City of Endless Night,” Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s latest thriller.

A terrified billionaire demands that his missing daughter be located, and he has the money and power to be a nuisance. The girl’s headless body is discovered in an abandoned warehouse. NYPD Lt. Vincent D’Agosta takes the lead and asks Pendergast for assistance on the high-profile case.

The course of the investigation immediately goes in the wrong direction when D’Agosta realizes that Pendergast seems distracted and not himself. To solve the crime, he needs Pendergast at the top of his game, especially when another decapitated body appears. As the murderer continues, becoming bolder and bolder in his methods, D’Agosta will have to shake some sense into Pendergast quickly, or they both might not survive.

Preston and Child continue to write tense and compelling tales while also invoking the feel of Sherlock Holmes or other Gothic stories of the late 19th century. When the focus shifts to the murders, it can be somewhat gruesome and diabolical. The villain is not only faceless, but almost a magician when it comes to what he is able to accomplish in plain sight. It borders on being unrealistic, but the marvelous writing overcomes those obstacles.