Ultimately, “The Obsidian Chamber” stretches its tether to reality further than any previous Pendergast book. The titular structure doesn’t play as big a part as one would think, although it is the site of one notably racy scene. “The Obsidian Chamber” doesn’t have quite as much of a sense of place as other P&C books, largely because there’s so much globe-hopping, but Diogenes’ island in the Florida Keys makes for a beautiful home base for the late-stage action. The craziness of those first 100 pages does pop up again as the book moves forward, particularly when Diogenes uses one of his several carefully cultivated fake identities to both administer lethal drugs to a Florida death-row inmate AND to perform the autopsy (which allows him to extract a part of the spinal column crucial to the formula that stabilizes Constance’s aging, a nod to the monster’s need for hypothalamus glands back in “Relic”). If the axiom that “If you don’t see a dead body, the character is still alive” holds true, we’ll see her again, and I’m hoping the Flavia-Diogenes story has more meat on its bones. She sees Diogenes as her soulmate in sociopathy. Possibly the most interesting character, though, is Flavia (again, a “Crimson Shore” holdover, although you’d be forgiven if you forgot about her). I have no clue if P&C will bring them together in a future book, but it’s something to keep us guessing. The shaping of a saga: All 12 ‘Halloween’ films, rankedĪlthough not many pages are devoted to a possible Pendergast-Constance romance, the final pages advance this thread, which was introduced in “Crimson Shore.” Pendergast is in his 40s and Constance is by appearance in her 20s – but actually in her 140s oddly, while Pendergast cares little for societal propriety as an investigator, propriety keeps him from a romance with his ward.

Again keeping things fresh with an unorthodox POV, we follow the seafaring ransom-seekers who pulled the agent from the Atlantic Ocean, where he was left drifting at the end of “Crimson Shore.” We also get the FBI’s perspective – particularly that of Pendergast’s former Army mate, Longstreet - as it seeks to retrieve our main character. This is despite the fact that Diogenes is undeniably the villain of the series, having logged a massive murder count he adds to it even in this book, and that’s to say nothing of the mortal danger he puts Proctor in, just for the sake of getting him out of the way.Įven less of a surprise than Diogenes’ resurrection is that of Pendergast himself. Constance is a cipher, so readers (particularly male readers) feel a kinship with Diogenes as he tries to figure out the mystery of what this woman actually feels for him. The cool thing about how P&C write this relationship is that it’s mostly from Diogenes’ perspective, so we know he really has changed and that he does indeed love Constance. Interestingly, we get insight into her mindset through a backdoor.ĭiogenes, Aloysius Pendergast’s brother who was supposedly killed off in “The Book of the Dead,” is back we suspected as much from hints in “Crimson Shore.” He courts Constance, his former lover whom he was merely using for the sake of revenge on Aloysius. This is the best novel so far about Constance Greene, Pendergast’s ward who looks 20-something but is a century older. There’s no way to talk further about this book without revealing some twists, so I’ll put a SPOILER WARNING here. Settings: Africa, New York City, Florida Keys

Diogenes pendergast