This mystery-thriller by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child is the latest in a sorta-kinda series that makes use of certain characters (and one setting) from previous books. The main character, FBI Special Agent Pendergast, is a unique and compelling creation, and the other returnees are both plausible and entertaining. But it’s been so long since I read Relic (which was really good) and Thunderhead that I had trouble summoning up any real continuity for them. I didn’t remember anything about any of them, other than Pendergast’s unusually white skin.
The basic premise is interesting; a serial killer, seemingly from the 1800s but still alive, is stalking the streets of New York. Clues to his identity and possible ways to stop him may be contained at an old construction site and within a “cabinet of curiosities” housed in the New York Museum of Natural History. This is the main fun of the book; learning about the late 19th century, the state of science at the time, the interest in natural history, the way the city was at that point. Preston and Child do their usual great job with the science, and there is one particularly memorable section in which Pendergast uses a sort of hypnosis on himself to go back in time and search for clues. It’s an interesting idea, and they pull it off well.
The Cabinet of Curiosities kept me reading steadily more or less all the way through, but there were one or two things that bothered me. Preston and Child have a habit of crafting each chapter so that it ends with a hook. While I understand that it’s good thriller practice, it actually started to bring me out of the narrative about halfway through the book. Also, although there are a couple of admirable twists, especially toward the end, that made me sit up and take notice, there was a certain clockwork, workman-like feel to the plot. The material is good enough on its own to keep people reading; I would prefer it if Preston and Child had enough confidence in it to use a more natural style of pacing at times, and to let their characters go off on the little tangents that make the really classic literary characters so memorable.
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