Still Life with Crows (Pendergast, Book 4)

Still Life with Crows Preston & Child manage to capture a perfect literary snapshot of mid-west small town Americana in decline, complete with stereotypical small town characterizations...which, as it turns out is forgivable as they introduce them as the stereotype, but as the story develops so too

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do the characters so that by the end of the book they are more complex, interesting, and likeable than they would have been has the authors stopped at the stereotype. While they are more complex than the stereotypes they could have remained, still they fall short of being main characters and that's a shame.

The basic premise is that there has been a murder, elaborately laid out and brutal beyond reason...the murder is both organized and frenzied, thoughtfully and painstakingly designed...it's methodical yet crazed...in short, it's are bizarre. What we start out with is a dead woman arranged on an elaborate tableau of corn stalks, dead crows impaled and placed in a circle around the body on valuable native American arrows and a killer who seems to appear magically out of the corn and to disappear just as easily and quickly, leaving behind only the gruesome but elaborately designed scene. Shortly thereafter Pendegast arrives (by bus no less) and inserts himself into the investigation. He claims the killer is local and serial...the sheriff doesn't believe him...shortly thereafter, more bodies begin appearing and the task at hand is to figure out who and how as quickly as possible.

I was glad to see the authors tone down the perfect-ness of Pendegast since they made him the main character in this book...somehow I think he's best written as part of a trio of main characters and neither Corrie (disaffected Goth teen hired to be his driver/assistant) nor the Sheriff were written in enough depth to qualify or involved enough to compare to the trio of Relic or Cabinet of Curiosities. So that leaves the focus mostly on the super perfect Pendegast, who is so cultured it is almost beyond belief, always dressed in the most expensive clothing, with the finest taste in food and drink, and naturally he is rich beyond measure...while they allowed him the luxury of fine food and expensive, elaborately prepared teas being Fed-Exed to his location in Kansas and kept him dressed in an expensive black suite and hand-made Italian shoes...he's not quite so perfect or annoying in Still Life with Crows as he was in Cabinet of Curiosities. He's still better than us...but we see more of how he works and why and that makes him more human (and thus likeable and believable as a character) and less of a super-human snob, at least it did for me.

One of the interesting things about Still Life with Crows is that the authors take a strong swipe at agribusiness, genetic engineering of crops, and meat processing (an unnamed turkey processing plant is one of the settings and they pull no punches when describing the process...or it's effect on the employees, to the reader)...it seems an odd but interesting aside in this serial killer horror fest. Additionally, this book plays to the most obvious themes of plotting...a strong Sherlock Holmes bent (with Shades of Poirot?), a disaffected teen rebel (with purple hair and "Goth" look) who is too smart for her own good, the contrast of refined city culture and bleak Midwest country life, the additional rich/poor contrast, the play between small town sheriff and FBI (complete with tones of it's MY investigation from the Sheriff)...so many stark contrasts in one book but because it's all richly woven together it works!

And the ending...please, I was expecting a monster (a sick twisted human one, as opposed to the human turned true monster in Relic), but noooooooooo, we got bad B movie ending instead...I figured it out well before the end and way hoping and praying they weren't REALLY going to go there...but they did. I enjoyed the book right up to that point, they crime scenes were elaborate, way creepy and gruesome; the build up was superb and then we got to the end and eh...it blows. To my way of thinking, it seemed like they got tired of writing it a little over 2/3 of the way through and just took the easy ending and played it out to the obvious end, sans usual mind blowing twist.

In the end, I enjoyed it...it was a thrilling, horrific, pulse pounding adventure. I can even forgive the Scooby-Doo monster/villain chase climax (with Corrie playing Daphne) with notes of Blair Witch and The Cave...such a mish-mash of action at the end...but like my love of Scooby-Doo, Agent P is dear to my heart for some reason I can't quite grasp and I forgive Preston and Child for it. It's actually a delightful read that somehow still managed to leave me slightly dissatisfied in the end...less B move ending next time please. I'd love to see Corrie again in the future; her character was enjoyable and has potential for so much more! I give Still Life with Crows 3 Stars instead of 4 because the last 1/3 of the book simply wasn't as good as the first 2/3...but don't let that stop you from picking it up, it's definitely entertaining and thrilling, I just can't justify 4 stars for a 3 star effort from these authors, they are capable of more!

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Cory is my favorite character in the series. I was hoping she would be in Book of the Dead, but no such luck. Maybe nextime.

Decent addition to the Preston/Child oeuvre. This entry again stars Agent Pendergast. He is in Kansas where there is a sadistic serial killer on the loose.

I recently finished this installment of the Pendergast series. I honestly didn't think they'd be able to keep things fresh with this being the fourth(?) book in the series but I enjoyed the novel quite a bit. I didn't see the ending coming until the last hundred pages or so. My only complaint was

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that there were at least three 'endings' before the book finished.

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Agent Pendergast, the main recurring character in this series, is the kind of irritatingly smart guy that everyone likes, even when they hate him. I have an ongoing argument about who would best play this character. My vote is for Crispin Glover. Regardless, this is the best of the Pendergast

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books, IMHO. Cabinet of Curiosities is quite good as well. The later works in the series feel phoned in, but if you started this series late, the order doesn't really matter much. The backstory is of interest, of course, but there are enough plotlines that it is still worth it to read these earlier, and better, works. Don't judge this series by the latests bits, please!

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Interesting story line with a great FBI character. Had all upside to the story line...

Excellent, well written. I dread the day I finish reading all of their novels. I haven't been disappointed yet.

This book in the Pendergast series sees FBI Special Agent Pendergast visiting Medicine Creek, Kansas, the site of a series of bizarre serial murders. They are at once organized and disorganized, an anomaly in the world of criminal profiling, and thus garners Pendergast's undivided attention. He

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works to track down the man or monster perpetrating these vile acts, at the same time sifting through the town's dirty laundry to uncover old familial sins that have some bearing on their current predicament.

It was a fun read, and like most books by Preston and Child, the pages fly by. They're great writers when it comes to painting a vivid scene in the mind's eye, and it's very easy to get absorbed in the narrative. They also explore many different interesting personalities in the dying town. By far the most intriguing is Corrie, the disaffected goth youth (for what goth youth *isn't* disaffected) who becomes Pendergast's "junior detective" protege.

But the one thing about this book that really grated on me--and indeed, the one thing about *most* P&C books--is the fact that Special Agent Pendergast is an undeniable Mary Sue. He's perfect. He's a genius, he has a crap-ton of money, he's cultured beyond believe, he is a crack shot with a gun, knows martial arts, can do damn near anything he sets out to do, he always figures out the mystery before anyone else, and while doing all of that he is amazingly smug and self assured about the whole thing. In short, he's perfect. He's intellectually and physically superior to everyone he meets, and it's annoying as hell.

Don't get me wrong. I still like the books. And in fact, of all the Lincoln and Child books I've read, this was by far my favorite. But a character who is utterly awsome at every aspect of life is boring to me. If anything, though, that's just another example of what great story tellers Preston and Child really are. If they can hold my attention with a character that I hate so utterly, they've got to be damn fine writers. And they are. That's why--despite my dislike of Pendergast--I still had to give the book a 4 out 5.

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This was the latest Pendergast book that I finished and was not disappointed by Preston & Child's 4th contribution to the series. One of my favorites so far.

This is the fourth installment of Pendergast that I have read, and I think he just gets better and better.

This tale takes place in a small (read desolate) town in Kansas. Has mysterious killings, Indian curses and all that make small towns both incredible and intolerable.

Excellent read!

A fan of all the books by Preston and Child, this thriller is set in Kansas. It's fun to see how Special Agent Pendergast handles the small town.

An unusual installment in the chronicles of Special Agent Pendergast, as he investigates a gruesome murder in the small dusty town of Medicine Creek, Kansas. The victim has been mutilated and arranged in an intricate scene in a small clearing in a cornfield. Soon other murders are taking place, and

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the fish-out-of-water Pendergast must counter small-town suspicions and prejudices as he attempts to unveil the killer. He enlists the help of 18-year-old Corrie Swanson, a town oddball who reminds me of a younger Lisbeth Salander (from the "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" trilogy). A stand-alone Pendergast chapter that is riveting for its characters and high suspense.

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Probably my favorite Agent Pendergast novel so far. Loved the small town Kansas setting surrounded by corn fields, in the midst of a long hot summer. Pendergast is away from New York this time and on vacation, although a vacation for him means murders and mayhem. Once again, we find ourselves

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undergound. Hey, at least it's cool down there.

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Lexi Dubovick
Book Review
SWAG
October 20, 2012

Still Life With Crows
By: Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

“Still Life With Crows” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child is by far the most advanced adult book I have ever read. It is about the small town of Medicine Creek, Kansas shaken by a serial

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killer that comes out of the blue. But this is no ordinary serial killer. This one murders his victims based on whoever is around. He has odd and disturbing ways of displaying the bodies and the crime scenes.
What I loved about this book was that it was not only the chase for a psycho, but actually about creating a plot deeper than just solving murders. I can’t say much more without giving away important details, but the authors give you a lot to think about in between the murders.
I would give this book a rating of 4 stars. What I didn’t like about the book was that the authors added in too many random characters without any explanations, and seriously lacked character development except with a few of the main characters. It was extremely hard to follow when a brand new unexplained character was speaking about something from their point of view. I always got confused between which character was which. Again, it just made it confusing and hard to follow.
Overall I truly loved this book! It had great descriptions (except when it came to the characters), great development with the plot and building things up, and very descriptive murder scenes. It is extremely gory so I advise anybody who may not be able to handle gross, disturbing, scary, and somewhat torturous books. In my case I didn’t take this as a bad thing, but it was quite different for me as a reader.
This book is definitely for those of you looking for a scarier, “more detailed” version of something like law and order, with intricate planning and great detail. Enjoy!

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As with all my guilty pleasures, my enjoyment of the fun things outweighs the irritation caused by the guilty bits. In the cases of Pendergast novels, the guilty bits are the wild implausibilities in both setting and some of the characters.

The delicious yummy things in this novel included:

The corn.

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I have no idea why, but I loved the setting the middle of all that corn. There was one particularly good quote about it too: "It wasn't natural, to be surrounded by so much goddamned corn. It made people strange."

I liked Corrie. I thought she was nicely characterized. She falls into the outcast-orphan trope, but it isn't overdone and I like the personal changes she undergoes through the story. They are believable and positive.

I wanted to like Hazen. He started out strong as a no-nonsense sheriff who had plenty of common sense and drive, but he deteriorated into too much of a stereotypical roadblock that was only there to foil Pendergast.

I always like Pendergast. He might be a little to perfect, but I just can't help myself.

And the caves were cool, insofar as the mysteries they contained, what they represented, and ... well, I just think caves are cool. But... but but but... The last 30% of the novel was 80% too long. I confess to skimming most of the chapters in which the characters were wandering around down in the caves, being killed one after another. It's as if the authors really wanted to describe lots of awful, gruesome deaths in a cave, and had to make sure we got full details on every one. I would have been just fine with "They went down into the caves. Three hours later, only two of them returned, all bloody."

My other grouse about the caves is that it was SO easy to run around in. They're chasing each other thither and yon, running along paths and down tunnels and across beautiful, flat floors. Um, excuse me? Have any of you ever been in an actual cave? Caves, as a rule, are not easy to get around in. They floors are covered with boulders, broken rocks, and rubble IF there even are floors. Much more often, all you have is sloping walls joining together, steep slabs of broken sedimentary rocks, and a mess. You don't go down into a cave with tennis shoes and a flashlight, you go with full climbing gear and headlamps. Maybe Job made all those cave parts passable, but....

So that's all I'll grouse about. I liked the resolution of the mystery. A fun romp. I'll keep reading them. :)

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Six-word review: Gruesome monster chase in Kansas cornfields.

Extended review:

The Agent Pendergast series is turning into a guilty pleasure for me. I know what I'm getting (I'll have fries with that), and I couldn't handle it as a steady diet (need balance, need nutrition, need fresh green

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vegetables), but sometimes it's fun to take a little vacation (catsup, plenty of napkins, no dishes to clean up afterwards).

The mealtime analogy ends there, though, because you definitely don't want to be reading this one at the dinnertable.

In fact, there are some meals that may never again look quite so appealing.

Each of the Pendergast books so far, I've noticed, weaves some sort of social theme into the plot. Maybe this is for relevance and depth, maybe it's because the authors really want to get a message out and are using entertainment as a platform, or maybe it's just because exposed social ills get our revulsion reflexes warmed up for the gut-twisting details of the main story.

(Honestly, I don't know why I'm enjoying these things. Usually too much grue puts me right off and I abandon the book. I can't say that it's because it's done here with such taste and refinement. Perhaps it's more that I just can't take these yarns too seriously--subterranean homeless populations and urban drug addiction and poultry processing plants notwithstanding.)

At any rate, here we have Agent Pendergast sleuthing amid the alien corn in sun-baked Kansas while something awful is carrying off small-town citizens and leaving their horribly mutilated bodies in dramatically ritualized arrangements. His preternatural mental powers come into play once again as he divines the connection between present events and the blood-drenched site of a nineteenth-century massacre.

Typically, most of the secondary characters are paper cutouts; to call them cardboard would be to overrate their substance. But there are always a few of an interesting complexity, notably the conflicted young woman who becomes his temporary aide and one member of the local constabulary.

I've done some fairly heavy reading lately, and one or two of my slow-moving current titles involve focused brainwork. I raced through this paperback page-turner like the fast-food alternative it is, licking my lips and for a little while forgetting about my diet.

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A great mystery crime novel given to me to read by my father- a book that not only lead me to read the entire "Penderghast" series, but to delve into the mystery-crime genre for a time. The intriguing protagonist is only the start to a great novel, were a complex mystery is unfolding in a small

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town, ending in ritualistic murders. What would seem to be a boring, cliche book ended up being something that has stuck with me throughout my literary experience. It is a refined, tense, and well written book that keeps you going until the very end- which for me would be the only flaw. Yes, the series does touch on the supernatural, but the antagonist was a bit ridiculous in this novel- and he is only revealed at the very, very end if i recall correctly. All and all, this is a great novel and definitely worth a read for someone interested in a crime novel with a twist.

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Still Life With Crows is about a small town in Kansas called Medicine Creek. Now some freaky things have been going on. By freaky I mean murders. No one knows who it is. People just keep disappearing and keep being found in the same corn field. An FBI agent is sent in to work on the case with the

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Kansas police. Together, they find out the unknown secrets of the town

While reading Still Life With Crows, I thought it was an okay book. Not Terrible...but not amazing. I remember that I loved the beginning and thought that the author was giving great detail. But then once I got to the middle of the book I got bored because I thought the book was too predictable. So I put the book down and never finished it, I hate when books are too predictable. Therefore, I would not recommend this book to people.

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My favorite of all of them.

A very dark and spine-tingling read! My favorite Pendergast book yet.

I've only read a few of Preston/Child's books, but I liked this one. Probably my 2nd fave from the duo, after Relic. Interesting plot, the characters are realistic.

Genre: Horror/Thriller

Rating: Best of the Series I’ve Read so Far

Agent Pendergast, just as mysterious as ever, turns up in a tiny Kansas town after a bizarre murder is found with the scene set as a ritualistic tableau.

But the next murder makes no sense, at least none that anyone can figure

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out, since it breaks all the rules regarding serial killers.

Pendergast, unloved by the local cops, finds a young girl, an ousider like him, to assist and he and she set out to catch the killer.

Very good descriptions of the country, the scenes, the local flora and fauna, complex mystery, and lots of crazy chases.

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Love Agent Pendergast. Superb research behind the entertaining plot. Epilogue capped it off nicely. Would recommend to anyone in search of a classic investigator amid real life circumstances with a sick twist.

Another great read in the Pendergast series. While some of these books aren't always a 5-star read, they're still incredibly enjoyable and I always find myself looking to grab the next one of the series at Barnes & Noble when it gets released each year. Hats off to Pendergast and all of his

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investigations.

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