The Wheel of Darkness (Special Agent Pendergast)
by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
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Book Summary Information
Author: Douglas Preston, Lincoln ChildEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2007-08-28
ISBN: 0446580287
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Book Reviews of The Wheel of Darkness (Special Agent Pendergast)
Book Review: Indiana Jones Meets The Mandala Of Doom
Summary: 3 Stars
Fairly early on in THE WHEEL OF DARKNESS authors Preston and Child make two major errors that leap off the page with a scream.
The two protagonists literally miss the boat--the ocean liner Britannica, which leaves the dock just as they arrive. Fortunately, they have enough influence to place a telephone call, have the ship back up, redock, and take them aboard. Somewhat later, the central character discovers card counters at work in the ship's casino. He reports this to the casino pit, which he describes as a closed room with television monitors that allow officers to watch the play at each table.
Now, ocean liners don't just back up and redock. It doesn't work that way, and in any case if you miss the boat but it is still in harbor you can always take a small boat to board the liner before it reaches open water. And no, the pit is actually a part of the gaming floor; what the book calls "the pit" is actually the survelliance room, and quite frankly any self-respecting survelliance officer would have spotted the card counters long, long before they took the bank.
There's lots more stuff like this in THE WHEEL OF DARKNESS, which might best described as Indiana Jones meets the Mandala of Doom: little things that are more distinctly fantasy than actual fact. And in truth when all is said and done, THE WHEEL OF DARKNESS has "premeditated bestseller" stamped all over it, very much as if the authors sat down with marketing gurus and came up with some basic rules, such as not using a lot of hard words and avoiding compound-complex sentences in the narrative.
The story is a bit slow to start, concerning special agent Pendergast and his ward Constance, who visit a Tibetan monastery only to be told that an artifact has been stolen: an item that has the capacity to put an end to humanity once and for all. Pendergast agrees to locate and return the item, which he ultimately discovers on an ocean liner bound for the United States. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, the mandala from hell, and before Pendergast and Constance manage to locate it quite a lot of that hell begins to break loose.
Although it really is too ify in terms of details and feels excessively premeditated, THE WHEEL OF DARKNESS really is a fun book, the sort of thing you scarf down in one or two sittings. But like many books of its kind, it doesn't linger. You read it, enjoy it, and when the book is over you never think twice about it again. Recommended as mindless entertainment.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Summary of The Wheel of Darkness (Special Agent Pendergast)
FBI Special Agent Pendergast is taking a break from work to take Constance on a whirlwind Grand Tour, hoping to give her closure and a sense of the world that she's missed. They head to Tibet, where Pendergast intensively trained in martial arts and spiritual studies. At a remote monastery, they learn that a rare and dangerous artifact the monks have been guarding for generations has been mysteriously stolen. As a favor, Pendergast agrees to track and recover the relic. A twisting trail of bloodshed leads Pendergast and Constance to the maiden voyage of the Britannia, the world's largest and most luxurious ocean liner---and to an Atlantic crossing fraught with terror.Contemporary Books
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Most talked about in Special Agent Pendergast Series - Book Order - Preston and Child
The Wheel of Darkness (Special Agent Pendergast)by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 2007-08-28; Hardcover; Book
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The Book of the Deadby Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
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Dance of Deathby Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
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Brimstoneby Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
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Still Life with Crows (Pendergast, Book 4)by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
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The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast, Book 3by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
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