Preston & Child – Crimson Shore – Review

If anything, the Preston & Child Pendergast series, is addictive. Thinking back, I could not remember every novel read, though for certain it's in the double digits. Crimson Shore is a special installment for many reasons. We find Special Agent Pendergast and his beautiful and mysterious 'ward', Constance Green, working together on a case. One can see flashes of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes in the novel, echoing somewhat to The Hound of the Baskerville. Overall, however, the plot is original and quite detailed.

In the opening scene of the text, we find Constance playing a classical piece on the harpsichord and Pendergast studying an old manuscript, when there is a knock at the door, at their mansion on 891 Riverside Drive. Uninvited visitors or visitors in general is not common. The visitor announces himself as Percival Lake, the world renowned modern sculptor. The man is permitted entry and has a request: he wants to hire Pendergast to solve a case. Lake's million dollar wine cellar has been robbed. All the collection is stolen except for one case, the most expensive wine in the whole collection. Pendergast initially refuses to take-on the case, but is persuaded when he hears the brand of French wine. If he solves the case, as payment, all he wants is a single bottle of the rare wine. Mind you a single bottle is worth many thousands of dollars.

Percival Lake lives in a refurbished Light House in a little seaside town in northern Massachusetts called Exmouth. Pendergast and Green drive up to the town in their vintage Porsche roadster, and as little town's go, on their arrival, turns many heads. Especially interested in the couple is the Chief of Police who immediately tickets Pendergast for a parking violation. The Chief is six months from retirement and his known for his laziness. He particularly targets Pendergast bordering on harassment, though severely regrets it later on.

What kicks-off the investigation in earnest, is while Pendergast is observing the crime scene in the wine cellar, he discovers a hidden chamber behind the brick wall. Inside the chamber are old chains, revealing that someone in the past was chained and locked in the chamber until his death. Pendergast deduces that the thieves were not after the wine but the skeleton remains and something else of great value.

Crimson Shore has all the signature attributes of the other novels: murder, a dark background to the town, including its citizens, and a hint of the macabre and supernatural. The novel turns out to be a complex though compelling story of shipwrecks, ritualistic murders, witchcraft and the occult.

Similar to the other novels in the series, the reader is confronted with a dramatic cliff hanger, inviting the reader to read the next book.

Again, good fun for those entertained by modern thrillers with a hint of the Gothic.