PendergastSeries

This series follows the unusual and brilliant agent Aloysius Pendergast, who becomes embroiled in various mysteries and murders. His unorthodox methods and brilliant deduction make him a unique detective unafraid to confront dark forces and dangerous adversaries. The stories combine thriller, horror, and mystery elements, and Pendergast's character is marked by his charisma and intellect. The series is known for its surprising twists and gripping plots.

Recommended Reading Order

1
Relic
Douglas Preston
484 pages
17 hours of reading
4.1(1789)Add rating
The book that started the New York Times bestselling collaboration of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Just days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum's dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human... But the museum's directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders. Museum researcher Margo Green must find out who-or what-is doing the killing. But can she do it in time to stop the massacre? Special lower priced edition available for a limited time.
2
Reliquary
Douglas Preston
4.0(1679)Add rating
Reliquary is the smash hit second book in the Pendergast series, from New York Times bestselling authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child Hidden deep beneath Manhattan lies a warren of tunnels, sewers, and galleries, mostly forgotten by those who walk the streets above. There lies the ultimate secret of the Museum Beast. When two grotesquely deformed skeletons are found deep in the mud off the Manhattan shoreline, museum curator Margo Green is called in to aid the investigation. Margo must once again team up with police lieutenant D'Agosta and FBI agent Pendergast, as well as the brilliant Dr. Frock, to try and solve the puzzle. The trail soon leads deep underground, where they will face the awakening of a slumbering nightmare... in Reliquary, from bestselling coauthors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
3
The Cabinet of Curiosities
Douglas Preston
640 pages
23 hours of reading
4.3(42919)Add rating
FBI agent Pendergast and archaeologist Nora Kelly join forces to stop a vicious murderer when the discovery of the remains of thirty-six victims of a nineteenth-century killer apparently sets off a new series of similar killings.
4
Still Life with Crows
Douglas Preston
640 pages
23 hours of reading
4.2(33120)Add rating
When a series of murders strikes small-town Kansas, FBI Special Agent Pendergast must track down a killer or a curse -- either way, no one is safe. A small Kansas town has turned into a killing ground. Is it a serial killer, a man with the need to destroy? Or is it a darker force, a curse upon the land? Amid golden cornfields, FBI Special Agent Pendergast discovers evil in the blood of America's heartland. No one is safe.
5
Brimstone
Douglas Preston
752 pages
27 hours of reading
4.2(34930)Add rating
When FBI Special Agent Pendergast discovers a murder in the attic of a Long Island estate, a scorched claw print leads him down a dark trail of unspeakable terror. A body is found in the attic of a fabulous Long Island estate. There is a claw print scorched into the wall, and the stench of sulfur chokes the air. When FBI Special Agent Pendergast investigates the gruesome crime, he discovers that thirty years ago four men conjured something unspeakable. Has the devil come to claim his due? Some things can't be undone.
6
Dance of Death
Lincoln Child
607 pages
22 hours of reading
4.2(28180)Add rating
FBI Special Agent Pendergast hunts a killer in Manhattan, only to confront his most formidable foe: his own brother. With one brother as a top agent and the other as a cunning criminal, a deep-seated animosity fuels a perfect crime, leading to a thrilling showdown.
7
The Book of the Dead
Douglas Preston
464 pages
17 hours of reading
4.2(32331)Add rating
Psychotic killer Diogenes faces down his incarcerated FBI agent brother, while the Museum of Natural History reopens a long-closed tomb exhibit, a decision that coincides with a series of murders and sparks rumors about an ancient curse.
8
The Wheel of Darkness
Douglas Preston
508 pages
18 hours of reading
3.9(514)Add rating
FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast and his ward, Constance Greene, fall into a dangerous assignment at a remote Tibetan monastery when they are asked to recover a stolen relic with a deadly curse.
9
Cemetery Dance
Lincoln Child
3.9(487)Add rating
Pendergast - the world's most enigmatic FBI Special Agent - returns to New York City to investigate a murderous cult. William Smithback, a New York Times reporter, and his wife Nora Kelly, a Museum of Natural History archaeologist, are brutally attacked in their apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Eyewitnesses claim, and the security camera confirms, that the assailant was their strange, sinister neighbour - a man who, by all accounts, died ten days earlier. While Captain Laura Hayward leads the official investigation, Pendergast and Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta undertake their own private - and decidedly unorthodox - quest for the truth. Their serpentine journey takes them to an enclave of Manhattan they never imagined could exist: a secretive, reclusive cult of Obeah and vodou which no outsiders have ever survived...
10
Fever Dream
Lincoln Child
520 pages
19 hours of reading
4.1(30129)Add rating
At a family reunion, Special Agent Pendergast is finally overcoming the loss of his wife, who was mauled to death by a lion during an African safari. However, when Pendergast discovers that his wife's rifle was intentionally loaded with blanks, he is forced to reopen old wounds in an effort to locate those responsible for the violent killing
11
Cold Vengeance
Douglas Preston
356 pages
13 hours of reading
4.1(857)Add rating
Devastated by the discovery that his wife, Helen, was murdered, Special Agent Pendergast must have retribution. But revenge is not simple. As he stalks his wife's betrayers--a chase that takes him from the wild moors of Scotland to the bustling streets of New York City and the darkest bayous of Louisiana--he is also forced to dig further into Helen's past. And he is stunned to learn that Helen may have been a collaborator in her own murder. Peeling back the layers of deception, Pendergast realizes that the conspiracy is deeper, goes back generations, and is more monstrous than he could have ever imagined--and everything he's believed, everything he's trusted, everything he's understood . . . may be a horrific lie.
12
Two Graves
Douglas Preston
496 pages
18 hours of reading
4.1(392)Add rating
After his wife, Helen, is brazenly abducted before his eyes, Special Agent Pendergast furiously pursues the kidnappers, chasing them across the country and into Mexico. But then, things go terribly, tragically wrong; the kidnappers escape; and a shattered Pendergast retreats to his New York apartment and shuts out the world.But when a string of bizarre murders erupts across several Manhattan hotels - perpetrated by a boy who seems to have an almost psychic ability to elude capture - NYPD Lieutenant D'Agosta asks his friend Pendergast for help. Reluctant at first, Pendergast soon discovers that the killings are a message from his wife's kidnappers. But why a message? And what does it mean?When the kidnappers strike again at those closest to Pendergast, the FBI agent, filled anew with vengeful fury, sets out to track down and destroy those responsible. His journey takes him deep into the trackless forests of South America, where he ultimately finds himself face to face with an old evil that - rather than having been eradicated - is stirring anew... and with potentially world-altering consequences.
13
White Fire
Douglas Preston
512 pages
18 hours of reading
4.2(483)Add rating
Past and present collide as Special Agent Pendergast uncovers mysterious connections between a string of 19th century bear attacks in a Colorado mining town, a fabled, long-lost Sherlock Holmes story, and a deadly present-day arsonist. In 1876, in a mining camp called Roaring Fork in the Colorado Rockies, eleven miners were killed by a rogue grizzly bear. Corrie Swanson has arranged to examine the miners' remains. When she makes a shocking discovery, town leaders try to stop her from exposing their community's dark and bloody past. Just as Special Agent Pendergast of the FBI arrives to rescue his protege, the town comes under siege by a murderous arsonist who-with brutal precision-begins burning down multimillion-dollar mansions with the families locked inside. Drawn deeper into the investigation, Pendergast discovers a long-lost Sherlock Holmes story that may be the key to solving both the mystery of the long-dead miners and the modern-day killings as well. Now, with the ski resort snowed in and under savage attack-and Corrie's life suddenly in grave danger-Pendergast must solve the enigma of the past before the town of the present goes up in flames.
14
Blue Labyrinth
Douglas Preston
403 pages
15 hours of reading
4.1(16712)Add rating
When a longtime enemy shows up dead on Pendergast's doorstep, the murder investigation leads him into his own dark past as a vengeful killer waits in the shadows. It begins with murder. One of Pendergast's most implacable, most feared enemies is found on his doorstep, dead. Pendergast has no idea who is responsible for the killing, or why the body was brought to his home. The mystery has all the hallmarks of the perfect crime, save for an enigmatic clue: a piece of turquoise lodged in the stomach of the deceased. The gem leads Pendergast to an abandoned mine on the shore of California's Salton Sea, which in turn propels him on a journey of discovery deep into his own family's sinister past. But Pendergast learns there is more at work than a ghastly episode of family history: he is being stalked by a subtle killer bent on vengeance over an ancient transgression. And he soon becomes caught in a wickedly clever plot, which leaves him stricken in mind and body, and propels him toward a reckoning beyond anything he could ever have imagined . . .
15
Crimson Shore
Lincoln Child
352 pages
13 hours of reading
4.0(13845)Add rating
Special Agent Pendergast and Constance Greene have been called to Exmouth, a small town on the wild Atlantic coast of Massachusetts, to investigate a seemingly innocuous theft. But what they discover at the crime scene changes the course of their investigation: a sealed burial chamber, complete with rusted leg irons, fragments of bone and claw marks on the inside-face of its bricks. Then a historian is found murdered in the desolate salt marshes that surround the town, his face mutilated, his body carved with arcane symbols. Exmouth has a grim history dating back to the aftermath of the Salem witch trials. And now a dark secret, centuries old, is rising to the surface.
16
The Obsidian Chamber
Lincoln Child
403 pages
15 hours of reading
4.0(680)Add rating
A TRAGIC DISAPPEARANCE After a harrowing, otherworldly confrontation on the shores of Exmouth, Massachussetts, Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast is missing, presumed dead. A SHOCKING RETURN Sick with grief, Pendergast's ward, Constance, retreats to her chambers beneath the family mansion at 891 Riverside Drive – only to be taken captive by a shadowy figure from the past. AN INTERNATIONAL MANHUNT Proctor, Pendergast's longtime bodyguard, springs to action, pursuing Constance's kidnapper through cities, across oceans, and into wastelands unknown. BUT IN THIS WORLD, NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS And by the time Proctor discovers the truth, a terrifying mechanism has stirred – and it may already be too late...
17
City of Endless Night
Douglas Preston
359 pages
13 hours of reading
4.1(1121)Add rating
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A consistently exciting and never predictable series."--Associated Press When Grace Ozmian, the beautiful and reckless daughter of a wealthy tech billionaire, first goes missing, the NYPD assumes she has simply sped off on another wild adventure. Until the young woman's body is discovered in an abandoned warehouse in Queens, the head nowhere to be found. Lieutenant CDS Vincent D'Agosta quickly takes the lead. He knows his investigation will attract fierce scrutiny, so D'Agosta is delighted when FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast shows up at the crime scene assigned to the case. "I feel rather like Brer Rabbit being thrown into the briar patch," Pendergast tells D'Agosta, "because I have found you here, in charge. Just like when we first met, back at the Museum of Natural History." But neither Pendergast nor D'Agosta are prepared for what lies ahead. A diabolical presence is haunting the greater metropolitan area, and Grace Ozmian was only the first of many victims to be murdered . . . and decapitated. Worse still, there's something unique to the city itself that has attracted the evil eye of the killer. As mass hysteria sets in, Pendergast and D'Agosta find themselves in the crosshairs of an opponent who has threatened the very lifeblood of the city. It'll take all of Pendergast's skill to unmask this most dangerous foe-let alone survive to tell the tale.
18
Verses for the Dead
Douglas Preston
400 pages
14 hours of reading
4.2(1194)Add rating
After an overhaul of leadership at the FBI's New York field office, Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast is forced to accept an unthinkable conditionof continued employment: the unorthodox lone wolf must now work with a partner. Pendergast and his new cohort, Special Agent Coldmoon, are dispatched to Florida to investigate a rash of ritualistic murders. A killer is carving out the hearts of his victims, and depositing the stolen organs alongside the headstones of existing graves. Accompanying each heart is a cryptic letter, signed by a 'Mr Brokenhearts'. There is one more intriguing aspect to Mr Brokenhearts' macabre modus operandi: the chosen graves all belong to women who have committed suicide. As he searches for the connection between the old suicides and the new murders, Pendergast realizes the brutal new crimes may be just the tip of the iceberg: that he faces a conspiracy of death reaching back decades. 'Fast-moving, sophisticated and bursting with surprises ... There's nothing else like them' WASHINGTON POST. 'One of thrillerdom's most exciting and intriguing series leads, and it remains among the most reliable in the genre' BOOKLIST.
19
Crooked River
Douglas Preston
416 pages
15 hours of reading
4.2(826)Add rating
Before he can return to New York from Miami, Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast is called to investigate something very strange that has happened on the west coast of Florida. Dozens of human feet, identically clad in blue have washed up on beaches. All exhibit unmistakeable signs of violence. Beyond that, nothing is known about the feet, except that they are fresh and haven't been in the water long. Pendergast reluctantly makes his way to the barrier islands off South Florida to investigate a case he believes to be outside his area of expertise and his interest. Once there, he finds the case both disturbing and intriguing, and is drawn into the mystery almost against his will. A preliminary pathology report indicates the feet were chopped, torn, or even wrenched from their bodies in the crudest of ways. Over the next few days, still more continue to wash in, until the number tops one hundred. Soon the case begins to take a most surprising and complex turn, and Pendergast finds it necessary to call in Special Agent Armstrong Coldmoon for a risky and very specific undercover assignment. And when, at last, the true origin of this awful gift from the sea becomes clear, the former partners are forced to confront an enemy, and a horror, more powerful and deadly than any they have faced before.
20
Bloodless
Douglas Preston
3.8(9215)Add rating
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: Agent Pendergast faces his most unexpected challenge yet when bloodless bodies begin to appear in Savannah, GA. A fabulous heist: On the evening of November 24, 1971, D. B. Cooper hijacked Flight 305--Portland to Seattle--with a fake bomb, collected a ransom of $200,000, and then parachuted from the rear of the plane, disappearing into the night...and into history. A brutal crime steeped in legend and malevolence: Fifty years later, Agent Pendergast takes on a bizarre and gruesome case: in the ghost-haunted city of Savannah, Georgia, bodies are found with no blood left in their veins--sowing panic and reviving whispered tales of the infamous Savannah Vampire. A case like no other: As the mystery rises along with the body count, Pendergast and his partner, Agent Coldmoon, race to understand how--or if--these murders are connected to the only unsolved skyjacking in American history. Together, they uncover not just the answer...but an unearthly evil beyond all imagining.
21
The Cabinet of Dr. Leng
Douglas Preston
4.2(350)Add rating
How can you stop a serial killer who has been dead for a hundred years? FBI Special Agent A. X. L. Pendergast always wants to protect his protegee Constance Greene from harm. But, against all odds, Constance has found a way to travel back in time. Heading to New York City in the late 1800s, Constance returns to the century of her birth to embark on a dangerous quest: stopping the era's most infamous serial killer, Dr. Enoch Leng, from bringing his nefarious plans to fruition. If Constance can stop Dr. Leng, she can finally prevent the events that led to the shocking deaths of her sister and brother... but can she survive herself, when up against one of the cleverest and most evil men of his age? 'Simply brilliant!' Lisa Gardner on Preston & Child The nail-biting new thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling Agent Pendergast series, perfect for fans of Clive Cussler and James Rollins.