Crimson Shore
A Pendergast Novel
Preston & Child
Grand Central Publishing 2015
352 pages

The Cask of Amontillado meets The Hound of the Baskervilles and horror meets thriller in Crimson Shore. This is the fifteenth Preston & Child mystery featuring the very odd and enigmatic Aloysius Pendergast. Fans of the series are going to willingly go along for the ride though those new to it would be better off starting with one of the earliest Preston & Child novels like Reliquary or The Cabinet of Curiosities.

Pendergast and protegee Constance Greene go to Massachusetts witch country to investigate a wine theft. Pendergast soon figures out the theft in the wine cellar was a cover to mask the real purpose, to tear down a wall and remove the body that had been entombed there. Crimson Shore (Pendergast Series Book 15) on Kindle

Add a mysterious creature in the marshes and stories of a missing ship bearing treasure some 150 years ago and you have the makings of a wild and rollicking adventure.

Though entertaining, Crimson Tide is not Preston & Child at their best. Many will be tempted to toss the novel aside, if not throw it violently away, after reading how Pendergast figures out what happened to the missing ship and its passengers. Being fairly familiar with the series, I got the impression the Constance Greene character had regressed.

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The ending of this Preston & Chile Pendergast mystery echoes that of Conan Doyle’s The Final Problem and opens towards the next installment.