Dwight Chambers knows that since his wife died, he is next to worthless as an agent at the New Orleans branch of the FBI, but he can't really bring himself to care. Unfortunately for him he was saddled with the job of mentoring junior agent Aloysius Pendergast, who is an oddball to say that least and one that has just gotten him in hot water after exposing a fellow agent taking bribes. The two of them have now been kicked out of the office, told to go find some cold case to work on and surprisingly Pendergast does. A man's body was found in a storage locker just over the border in Mississippi his right arm cut off below the shoulder. At first Chambers rights it off as a gangland killing but Pendergast sees things that Chambers does not, and he is certain that they are dealing with a serial killer who has flown under the radar for years. Willing to allow Pendergast to take the lead, Chambers sits back and finds himself more energized than he's been since he lost his wife, but there's something about Pendergast that just isn't right, and Chambers has to question what his new "partners" motives really are.
Unfortunately, all of my Pendergast reviews have not made it to this account (working on it) but this is one of my all-time favorite series and this was such an awesome origination story for Pendergast!
One of my favorite things about Pendergast has always been that while he is most definitely the good guy, it is not necessarily in the manner that most "good guys" are portrayed, and this origination story really drives that home both for the new reader and those of us who have read the series. Per usual he spends most of the book not informing Chambers of his suspicions regarding the killer or his motives and this becomes so very important about halfway through the book. I'd like to blame Diogenes for his lack of trust with people but honestly, I've read the whole series this is just the person he is. A running theme throughout the series that I never grow bored of to be honest, to make the leaps that Pendergast does you have to know his history and his family's history, without that context he just seems like a jerk. Which he most definitely is, however, the connections that Pendergast makes he is only able to because of the family he grew up in, and I don't care how confident you are revealing that past is an absolute nope. He does the things he does to protect the world from the very people who made him who he is today and while his actions may look callous at best and just straight up unhinged at worst, he has his own set of morals and in the long run they save lives.
Chambers is an interesting person to put him with in terms of his mentor. The guy is obviously very by the book and Pendergast most definitely is not. While they do work well together for the first half or so of the book it is clear from the beginning that there is no way Pendergast will ever bring him over to his line of thinking and it becomes impossible to not compare Chambers to D'Agosta or Coldmoon for that matter, not to even mention Constance. Chambers sees things that make no sense, or I guess that better phrase would be don't add up and ignores these things. His thinking is narrowminded at best and quite honestly downright prejudiced at worst.
And now my favorite part: The bad guy! For those of you who have read the series there is a point where the bad guy literally states that he believes Pendergast to be his equal, and the funny part of this is the bad guy had actually taken the time research The Pendergasts. To do any sort of research into the Pendergast family and somehow believe that you will come out on top is dangerous for your health. Compared to other horrible human beings in this series this one really takes the cake, his arrogance is nothing short of astonishing. He himself even says that he's like a kindergartner breaking all of the other children's toys at one point (this is not a direct quote, but I think you all get the point), and honestly that's pretty accurate. He believes he is equal to Pendergast because he has clearly deliberately chosen to stay among those who allow him to be maintain his superiority, because of this it never even crosses his mind that he not as smart as he thinks it is. Given what we find out at the end I am almost sad that Diogenes didn't have some random reason to be associated with this, he would have ate him alive.
Finally, and these are both very important things, when Pendergast does finally take out the bad guys it is absolutely glorious, however, it was nowhere near as spectacular as Constance taking out a certain asshole in the last book nor is it anywhere near her unleashing hell on Earth a few books ago. Which leads us to the second most important thing; I missed Constance. A lot. I read this series half for Pendergast and half for Constance and not having her there, especially after how the last book ended was almost painful. That being said given how this one ended I genuinely can't imagine having to force Constance to deal with that for thirty seconds with all I know about her.
Whether you are new to this series or you've read all of them I highly recommend this one. My favorite part with this being an origination story was that Pendergast truly does not seem to have changed in all of that time. And yes, I know that's weird from someone who screams about character growth, but both the character and the story don't really call for it. Pendergast is absolutely amazing because he is comfortable in his own skin, if his origination story demonstrated anything less than that it would have been a huge let down.
As always thanks to Netgalley and Grand Central Publishing for the eArc!
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