Grab Crooked River (Pendergast, #19) Curated By Douglas Preston Accessible As Paperback

York Times bestselling authors Doug Preston and Lincoln Child return with their next blockbuster Pendergast novel as he and Junior Agent Coldmoon race to uncover the mystery of several blueshoeclad severed feet found floating in the Atlantic.


Dozens of identical blue shoes are found in the ocean off the southwestern coast of Florida, all with a severed human foot inside, all exhibiting unmistakable signs of violence.
They appear out of nowhere one day, floating in on the tide,
Called off the tarmac from his return flight back to New York City, Pendergast reluctantly arrives on Captiva Island and is quickly drawn into the mystery.
A preliminary pathology report indicates the feet were wrenched from their bodies in the crudest of ways, As the days continue, more wash in until the number tops one hundred,
Soon, Pendergast and his partner, junior agent Coldmoon find themselves squaring off against an adversary more powerful and deadly than they've ever encountered.
Bizarre, gruesome and oh so engrossing, I've almost forgotten how addictive these books were, I'm finally up to date with the Pendergast series and it's because I was trying to save some for later.
And now I'll be waiting for the next one with bated breath, That cover for Bloodless is my favourite of the series so creepy and atmospheric, . First, let me state my disappointment with the authors for following the formulaics action movie villain recipe, and for breathing a little life into this story only to have it lead to such a disappointing resolution for me.
In large part, my irritation is driven by a view that wellwritten antagonists are made the same way as wellwritten protagonists.
A character usually benefits from character development, interesting and plausible motives, has realistic drives, and exhibits quirks or oddities that flesh them out as a person rather than a mustache twirling cardboard cutout.
Usually Preston Child novels have a fun and fresh take on these sorts of ideas, and this is why I enjoy their works.
In this particular effort, we instead get served up a warmedover movie plot bristling with ner' do wells as our primary antagonists, lazy plotting and pacing.
In addition, we are also forcefed a dose of transparent commentary on social issues, gender and identity politics power dynamics, and a barely veiled hardedge political subtext, despite the authors forcing their main character to mouth the talking point that he's uninterested in politics.
Give me a break. I wanted to like this book, but ultimately it came off like a half baked manuscript unready for prime time.
Too bad. Strange things are “afoot” in Florida again! You would say that the happenings in these Preston amp Child books are too crazy for real life, but when I see articles like this one coming out of Florida just this week, nothing surprises me:

Jars filled with tongues, other human remains dating back tos found in Florida home

sitelink nydailynews. com/news/nati

Preston amp Child continue their adventures with “Florida Man” and this book is definitely weird and action packed.
From the getgo, the mystery was disturbing and seemingly unexplainable, Pendergast is back in his usual form with odd approaches to evidence collection and complete disregard of rules and regulations in order to get things done.
Of course, he uses a sweet Southern approach instead of brute force, but he has some of the usual gang along to help with that.
This final climatic scene is as cringeworthy as it is action packed, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time!

But sorry there is a but!, there are a couple of things that were not my favorite.
Not bad, but enough to bring this down into thepoint range, First, some of the action was a bit Hollywood, In some of the Pendergast books I have loved this, In others I did not, Here it felt a bit cheesy, so it detracted some from my enjoyment, Second, there was an odd side mystery that felt a bit rushed and out of place, I wont say more in order to avoid spoilers, but unless it ends up playing into future books, it just seemed out of place.


Despite the previous paragraph, it is a great book for those who are ready for more of this series.
Would you enjoy it if you have never read any before Well, in my opinion, there is too much here referencing previous books that I would have been frustrated, but it may not bother you.
If you decide to read it and you have not read the rest of the series, just be prepared to not know what is being discussed from time to time and/or who people are.

Crooked River is theth book in the FBI thriller series written by coauthors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
Set in Florida, where Pendergast and Constance are vacationing, his boss assigns the agent to a puzzling case where sneakers are showing up on a beach.
. . except they have sawedoff feet in them still, Cuban prisoners Satantic cult Neither knows, but Pendergast teams up with a previous partner to solve the case, and of course, they almost die again.
Constance to the rescue! But she's solving her own weird case of a man who went missing, . . she's renting his home, aware of ghosts who seem to haunt the place, Are the stories connected Interesting plot lines, but I felt like the usual pomp and circumstance surrounding the cleverness of the plots was missing.
Almost a hastily written version of the traditional complex thrillers these two authors put out, I'm ready to read the latest one, just released earlier this year, . . and then I'm current. Another fun buddy read with a good friend who loves the series as much as I do, Just that this wasn't one of the better ones, in my opinion, Not up to the standards of previous Pendergast books, Felt like this was written not by Preston and Child but by some assistant trying to duplicate their writing style.
The "haunted house" subplot felt tacked on just to give Constance something to do, some reason to have her involved in the story.

Also these examples of sloppy writing: very early on in the story the local police chief has to shoot his own dog because it is running away with one of the feet that washed up on the beach.
It's never mentioned again until well into the book when an "oh right, the dog was killed" kind of thought was tossed into the story.
It really felt like what happened to the dog had been completely forgotten about up to that point, And it is never mentioned again, And this: the same police chief breaks his leg and yet within a few hours he's driving a car for several hours and managing to walk down basement steps.
Just not believable.
Huge info dump at the end tries to pull together all the random bits of plot but it just comes across like the book was finished in a hurry.
This was fantastically entertaining. I really enjoyed the inclusion of Coldmoon in the last book and I was pleased to see him involved in this case too.
I was so intrigued by the premise for this book that I couldnt wait

to read it, The denouement was very satisfying, Go, Constance! I kept waiting for Constance to say, "They drew first blood, " Haha.

I suggest to have Materia Primoris Mark Snow at hand for background music, especially in the last quarter.


Percy Bysshe, I was afraid it would be something like that,

titular line:
p: Gladstone leaned over his shoulder, It seemed that not too long ago, a developer in Carrabelle had been fined for illegally dredging the Crooked River to his new marina.
Ripped out a lot of mangroves in the process, tooa big nono, This is a fine and entertaining book, no doubt about it, Where do the mysterious cut off feet come from that are washed upon the shore What about the haunted house Pendergast and Constance Green buy Besides we have entertaining sidekicks and go to different and dangerous places.
Some character involved in the story dies, But sometimes I think the story simply was too over the top, We have too much of a James Bond villain here the general and too muchs conspiracy I never thought that I would say something like that ever.
At some parts the story seems to be a bit long winded and dragged especially the chapters on sea current and the team doing this.
But in the end I was glad having followed Special Agent Pendergast in solving this incredible task, There are also some literary allusions Poe, Percy Bysshe Shelley and a good dose of riddles, The series has come a long way, To me volumeWhite Fire was the best book so far, Of course it's recommended to every Pendergast fan even though it has a bit of brutal core idea, I would say a.but give it!.