Reading Verses for the Dead

Are you wiped out after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday preparations, shopping, and deals? Relax with a few books from my Thanksgiving post. And don’t forget that today is Giving Tuesday. Lots of charities have matching donation programs today, so check out your favourite cause and see how you can multiply your donation to help out others today.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules and more teasers at The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along.

Verses for the Dead is book #18 in the Pendergast series by Preston & Child. If you have read any of the rest of the series, you know that Agent Pendergast (FBI) prefers to work on his own, but in this case he is paired up with a junior agent to “assist” him (ie. spy on him and report any rogue behaviour to their boss.) A serial killer is on the loose, and Pendergast is the only one who seems to have any idea how to pursue the investigation.

As always, Preston & Child bring a good thriller to publication, with plenty of interesting characters and a truly evil serial killer operating behind the scenes. I will say, though, that there was some stuff in the behavioural profiling explained by a character in the book that is way off base. But to be fair I don’t know yet whether that is because the character was intentionally misleading the agents, whether it was a red herring planted by the authors, or if it really was just a mistake. I’ll know in a few more days!