The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

I first picked up a Preston and Child book because I really liked the movie Relic and I was curious about the source material. The book was substantially more robust, as you would expect, and different enough that the story was surprising. The Cabinet of Curiosities is the third story by Preston & Child to feature the mysterious Agent Pendergast and have a ton of interesting historical info on museums, natural history, and New York history.

In The Cabinet of Curiosities, construction workers at a new building site uncover a ghastly collection of bodies, all mutilated in the same fashion. Enter Agent Pendergast, the tall, pale agent involved with the earlier Relic and Reliquary novels who seems to be extra rich, full of endless facts, and borderline sexy (maybe that’s just me). Pendergast investigates with the help of Nora Kelly, an archeologist at the New York Museum of Natural History, much to the chagrin of her bosses and the building’s developer, who has the mayor pretty much in his pocket. Things heat up when the city is plagued by new killings that mimic the bodies found at the construction site, and Kelly’s boyfriend, William Smithback Jr., Times reporter, starts throwing out clues in the press. Is the serial killer just mimicking the19th century scientist who was looking for the secret to immortality or is the killer that same scientist become immortal.

I really liked the story here.  Why I like most about Preston’s & Child’s books (at least those that I have read) is the crazy amount of detail that is included about whatever the main storyline is – Relic and the whole DNA sequencing bit, this one with urban archeology.  The incredible detail about the museum and the mechanics of how it works is so interesting to my Art History, museum studies brain. Plus, I find the tall, pale, spooky Pendergast sexy in a weird sort of way. It’s probably the oversized brain he seems to have and his interest in the weird and spooky cases. It’s probably a hold over from my Spooky Mulder crush days. (Okay, so I still have a Spooky Mulder crush. I’ll admit it.) The story seems long at points but the tightly woven climax is page-turning.

What I didn’t like – Nora Kelly actually falling for the slime bag Smithback. I didn’t find much of value in his character but hey, maybe it’s my Pendergast crush talking.

Overall, if you like Michael Crichton books and his ability to turn future science into interesting stories, but like a little horror/sci-fi thrown in, you might check these guys out.

Rating: 4 Purrs, and not just because of Agent Pendergast