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An unusual serial killer is wreaking havoc in a small corn-growing town in Kansas; he leaves outlandish signatures, such as a mutilated body within a circle of crows on stakes and a ring of broken corn stalks. On his own initiative, Pendergast, no stranger to bizarre murders, shows up to investigate, and the authors make much hay from the contrast between the lean, infinitely refined and impossibly erudite
Pendergast, a distinct descendant of Sherlock Holmes, and the down-home milieu he finds himself in. As if to emphasize his ancestry, the authors give Pendergast a Watson here: one Corrie Swanson, a rebellious, pierced and tattooed teenage girl whom he hires as his driver and guide. Further killings occur, which rumor and Pendergast tie to a 19th-century massacre of a band of outlaws by Indians. (As Pendergast explains to Corrie, he arrives at this conclusion through a "form of mental concentration, one of my own devising, which combines the memory palace with elements of Chongg Ran, an ancient Bhutanese form of meditation.") Not surprisingly, the relatively hick local cops don't like Pendergast, nor do the local politicians, who hope their town will be chosen for a lucrative experiment in genetically modified crops. When Corrie is dragged off to the killer's hideaway in a massive cave system, however, cops and Pendergast unite in an extended underground cat-and-mouse chase that will entertain readers despite their likely disappointment at the absurd, even ludicrous, identity of the villain. This may be minor Preston/Child, but it is major Pendergast; those for whom he's the cup of tea will drink deep. (July 1)
433:, Pendergast and Sheriff Hazen watch as Ms. Kraus is allowed to say goodbye to Job, before he is committed to another facility. Watching her read one of his favorite books to him, they realize that there was a pattern in Job's gruesome tableaus after all: he was re-creating scenes from old nursery rhymes.
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Sheila Swegg, the first victim, accidentally discovered the entrance to the cave system while digging for relics (the same entrance used by the
Cheyenne warriors to ambush the Forty-Fives). Job killed her, purely by accident, and then came out to explore the new world. With a child's brain inside a
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After emerging from the cave, Pendergast apprehends Ms. Kraus, and explains what has been going on: during the 1930s, the young Ms. Kraus became pregnant with an illegitimate child; her father, who was a sternly religious man as well as a bootlegger, imprisoned her in the cavern for the period of her
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Unwilling to give up, Corrie thinks over the case at home, and comes up with an interesting clue: one of the killer's victims was, unusually, boiled whole. There are few places with either the equipment or the privacy needed to do such a thing, but one is a local tourist attraction, Kraus's
Kaverns.
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That FBI Special Agent
Pendergast, one of the most charismatic thriller heroes in memory, dominates this latest novel from Preston/Child is the good news; that he's working the least interesting case of his literary career (other outings include The Cabinet of Curiosities and Reliquary) is the bad.
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The discovery of the caverns beneath
Medicine Creek revitalizes the town's tourist industry, saving its economy without recourse to the somewhat controversial ethanol field contract. With the money she has earned as Pendergast's assistant, Corrie prepares for a road trip to track down her father,
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Before long, additional murders are committed, also in the corn field. Following
Pendergast around, Corrie is surprised to find herself drawn into the investigation. For all their differences, Pendergast is the first person to value Corrie's abilities and entrust her with responsibility, and she
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after a gruesome murder occurs. With the help of local teenaged misfit Corrie
Swanson, he continues to investigate as more citizens are killed. Pendergast is soon led to believe that the murderer must be a member of the community. He soon discovers that the murders are connected to an old curse.
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was to attack unprotected villages and slaughter the women and children. One night, a group of
Cheyenne warriors managed to ambush the Forty-Fives, appearing behind their sentries and disappearing like ghosts, after killing all of them. The Forty-Fives' leader, horribly mutilated, pronounced a
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Pendergast shares some of these details with the editor of the town newspaper, in exchange for an overview of the town and its population. Based on his information, the editor produces a somewhat sensationalist news story, associating the murder with a local town legend, "The Curse of the
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The
Sheriff becomes so enamored of his theory that he appeals to Pendergast's regional F.B.I. superior, to have him removed from the case. Corrie is surprised, and upset, when Pendergast appears to passively accept this, and gently informs her that her services are no longer required.
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Determined to check out the clue herself, Corrie goes to the cave alone. But after confirming the existence of the still, she stumbles onto the entrance to a much larger cave system, and becomes hopelessly lost. She then realizes, to her horror, that the killer is in there with her.
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Pendergast and the
Sheriff separately reach the same conclusion about the killer's likely hiding place. They likewise stumble onto the vast cavern system and narrowly manage to save Corrie and critically wound the killer, though several of the Sheriff's deputies are killed.
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pregnancy, and that is where she bore her son, whom she named Job. Her father never allowed Job to see the light of day, but, later, after he had died, Ms. Kraus grew to like the idea of keeping her son safe and loved inside the cave. The result was a pure
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who left the family when Corrie was very young. Corrie is not expecting any miracles, but is hoping for closure. To her amazement, Pendergast also tells her that he has endowed her with an educational trust fund to escape Medicine Creek and attend
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Corrie recovers from her ordeal. One night, as she is preparing for bed, Job accosts her window and begins chasing her. She narrowly avoids being killed by offering to be his "friend." Mental health authorities arrive and take Job into custody.
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unexpectedly thrives on the experience. As he explains it, her assistance is invaluable to him, since she is intimately familiar with the townspeople and their secrets, and yet, as an outsider, has no problem telling him the unvarnished truth.
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But Pendergast upsets both the Sheriff and the editor with his opinion that the killer is local to Medicine Creek, for the simple reason that the town is so isolated that no one could have entered the area from outside without being seen.
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A mutilated corpse is found in a cornfield in Medicine Creek, Kansas, drawing Agent Pendergast there. Since he is technically on vacation, he has no official status or resources, and is barely tolerated by the local Sheriff, Hazen.
325:. What is intriguing is that Medicine Creek's killer does not fall readily into either category: some of his attacks are unplanned and seemingly random, while his "organized" killings vary widely in their ritual aspects.
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The other victims found in the cornfield are likewise arranged in bizarre tableaus, but markedly different from the first one. While going over the ground, Pendergast gives Corrie a brief lecture on the classification of
402:, who spent the first fifty years of his life without contact with the outside world at all, or with any human being except his mother. He also became physically powerful from roaming and climbing around the caves.
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ends with a letter, purportedly written by Corrie to Preston and Child, telling them that she has graduated Exeter and plans to spend a year in New York City, working and learning, before attending university at
357:
When a visiting scientist is found murdered, the Sheriff develops his own theory of the case: Medicine Creek and a neighboring town, both of which are dying economically, were competing for a contract from
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who is an avid collector of Old West memorabilia, and the town authority on "The Curse of the Forty-Fives." Pleased to have an interested audience, Jim tells the story: the Forty-Fives were a group of
479:
In giving Corrie her scholarship, Pendergast confides that he recently came into an inheritance from an "old relative," who did not obtain his money by good works. This is a reference to Antoine/Enoch.
309:. Though she is suspicious of Pendergast, she eagerly accepts his offer of $ 100 a day, just for her driving skills and the benefit of her familiarity with the town.
514:, in which F.B.I. Agents remove her from Exeter to Australia, for her protection, while Pendergast and his close friends are being stalked by his brother, Diogenes;
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Constance Greene, who appears prominently in the next three novels, is also introduced, as an unidentified figure watching Wren from the recesses of the mansion.
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production. The "serial killings" must be a sham by the administration of the other town, to scare the scientist and the university away from Medicine Creek.
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Finding it inconvenient to conduct his investigations on foot, Pendergast hires a local teenager, Corrie Swanson, to chauffeur him around in her battered
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in the Kansas territory and make it "safe" for the white settlers. The Forty-Fives were both cowardly and brutal, and their
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named Sheila Swegg, was found naked in a clearing, with her neck broken. A grisly tableau around the body, consisting of
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or children psychologically damaged by long-term isolation from other human beings: the
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While waiting for Pendergast, Corrie occupies herself with a paperback novel called
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There are several references to the events of the previous novel,
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mother, is the town misfit, who has frequently been arrested for
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This novel also foreshadows the events of the subsequent novel,
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Corrie takes Pendergast to meet "Brushy Jim," a semi-deranged
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artifacts, and moreover are almost impossibly well-preserved.
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Wren makes the first reference to Pendergast's brother,
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References to real-life history, events, or persons
446:, a fictional sequel to Preston and Child's novel,
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569:Pendergast refers to several prior cases of
274:impaled on arrows, indicates the work of a
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354:curse on the land shortly before he died.
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625:Still Life With Crows by Douglas Preston
249:Agent Pendergast visits Medicine Creek,
211:is a thriller novel by American authors
1168:Speculative crime and thriller fiction
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614:Still Life With Crows (Pendergast #4)
323:"organized" and "disorganized" killers
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464:Wren, the mysterious denizen of the
266:The victim, a petty con artist and
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727:The Cabinet of Curiosities
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234:The Cabinet of Curiosities
184:The Cabinet of Curiosities
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239:Special Agent Pendergast
116:Print, e-book, audiobook
87:Grand Central Publishing
1178:Novels by Lincoln Child
1043:The Monster of Florence
866:The Cabinet of Dr. Leng
508:she appears briefly in
466:New York Public Library
420:Phillips Exeter Academy
360:Kansas State University
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237:(2002)) to feature FBI
1153:Techno-thriller novels
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337:veterans who formed a
20:Still Life with Crows
16:Novel by Lincoln Child
1003:Douglas Preston works
942:(1999) Series Prequel
887:(2000) Series Prequel
839:City of Endless Night
767:The Wheel of Darkness
735:Still Life with Crows
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575:Wolf Child of Aveyron
540:in a supporting role;
208:Still Life with Crows
1188:Novels set in Kansas
1183:Collaborative novels
1158:2003 American novels
914:Beyond the Ice Limit
831:The Obsidian Chamber
759:The Book of the Dead
641:publishersweekly.com
519:The Book of the Dead
444:Beyond the Ice Limit
174:PS3566.R3982 S7 2003
1074:Lincoln Child works
954:The Scorpion's Tale
847:Verses for the Dead
63:Aloysius Pendergast
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1119:The Forgotten Room
1063:The Kraken Project
1027:Tyrannosaur Canyon
876:Gideon Crew series
382:who kept a secret
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98:July 1, 2003
1089:Death Match
1048:Mario Spezi
960:Diablo Mesa
939:Thunderhead
783:Fever Dream
592:—Review by
545:protagonist
376:Prohibition
295:AMC Gremlin
231:(1997) and
1147:Categories
1096:Deep Storm
807:White Fire
799:Two Graves
646:2015-01-07
601:References
554:White Fire
470:Beaux Arts
437:Continuity
431:sanitorium
380:bootlegger
162:813/.54 21
1131:Chrysalis
1035:Blasphemy
1019:The Codex
947:Old Bones
860:Bloodless
743:Brimstone
719:Reliquary
687:Works by
582:Reception
543:She is a
487:Brimstone
400:sociopath
343:Civil War
307:loitering
303:alcoholic
228:Reliquary
197:Brimstone
83:Publisher
495:Diogenes
408:morality
345:to hunt
339:guerilla
280:Cheyenne
225:(1995),
149:51088139
73:Thriller
49:Language
992:Riptide
691:and/or
547:of the
474:Cabinet
364:ethanol
124:480 pp.
53:English
1133:(2022)
1127:(2017)
1121:(2015)
1115:(2012)
1107:(2009)
1099:(2007)
1091:(2004)
1085:(2002)
1082:Utopia
1066:(2014)
1058:(2010)
1055:Impact
1038:(2008)
1030:(2005)
1022:(2003)
1014:(1994)
1011:Jennie
995:(1998)
987:(1996)
968:(2023)
962:(2022)
956:(2021)
950:(2019)
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826:(2015)
818:(2014)
810:(2013)
802:(2012)
794:(2011)
786:(2010)
778:(2009)
770:(2007)
762:(2006)
754:(2005)
746:(2004)
738:(2003)
730:(2002)
722:(1997)
714:(1995)
703:series
551:novel
534:novel
251:Kansas
199:
186:
59:Series
34:Author
711:Relic
384:still
378:-era
272:crows
222:Relic
121:Pages
69:Genre
549:2013
532:2011
299:Goth
245:Plot
215:and
143:OCLC
130:ISBN
525:NYU
422:in
1149::
639:.
490::
461::
426:.
75:,
1050:)
680:e
673:t
666:v
649:.
557:.
527:;
476:;
452:.
40:,
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