“City of Endless Night” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child – The Headless of the Metropolis

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child combine forces once again to create City of Endless Night. In this investigative mystery we embark on a hunt for a serial killer whose first strike was directed at the reckless daughter of a wealthy tech billionaire.

Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta is on the case, but little does he suspect, this is the one case which will push him over the edge and have him face a foe with much more profound motivations than he could suspect.

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child Craft Another Mystery

Collaborations between authors seems to be an increasingly common practice in the digital age, mostly due to the fact communication has evolved to the stage where it's at. It allows various smaller authors to join forces in hopes of increasing their chances at writing a quality novel and gaining recognition.

Perhaps more relevantly to our case, it also opened the door for well-established authors to cooperate in hopes of combining their strengths to create something which would outclass what either of them can do on their own.

Douglas Preston and Lee Child have already worked together on some occasions and their works have certainly been on the original side of the spectrum, and recently they have returned to the fore once again with City of Endless Night.

In this investigative thriller, we follow the experienced lieutenant CDS Vincent D'Agosta as an unsavoury case gets dumped in his lap. The daughter of a tech billionaire has gone missing, and his worst fears become reality when her decapitated body is discovered in an abandoned warehouse.

The head is still missing. Little does the lieutenant suspect, the diabolical fiend has only begun his body work, and it was the first body amongst many more to come.

With the city gripped in terror and panic, D'Agosta joins forces with FBI Special Agent A. X. L. Pendergast as they race against the clock to defeat an enemy who strikes from the shadows and has them both in his crosshairs.

Sensible Priorities

Even in times of tremendous censorship and persecution, literature was always one of the primary means for authors to express themselves without necessarily making an outright speech in public.

Things are no different today, and if you take a closer look at most books you'll find they are heavily coloured by the author's thoughts and perceptions of the modern world.

Many take this opportunity to jab at politics, religion, or society in general. For this reason, I was quite glad to see this novel didn't really have any of that.

While it is always interesting to hear what people have to say about polarizing topics, it is equally refreshing to be able to sit down and read something which does away with all of that and focuses on trying to entertain the reader above all else.

As a matter of fact, contrary to previous collaborative works between these two authors, I found there was very little focus placed on character development, or really anything other than the story itself.

Taking a slower pace than what we're used to, the priority lies in unfolding the plot and taking us through the various twists and turns they have planned for us along the way. Unfortunately, there are a few moments which feel like they bring the pace to a halt, especially towards the middle parts of the book.

They're definitely not enough to ruin the book, but in my opinion they definitely deserve being mentioned for they feel somewhat out of line with what I would be expecting from these authors, and I'm sure most people will agree with me.

The Terror of New York

With this book lacking a bit in the character development and pacing departments, I think it's time to turn our attention to the story itself and its main driving force, the villain.

If, like myself, you enjoy your investigative mysteries dark, grizzly, and with a bit of blood on the side, then you'll probably take a liking to the atmosphere they build in this book.

The crimes committed by the maniac truly feel like the hefty blows to society which they are, and I will give the authors in credit for the way in which they developed the city throughout the novel.

The slowly increasing levels of panic and mass hysteria help create a sense of urgency as well as demonstrate palpable consequences to the villain's actions. As a matter of fact, I believe the ending is as good as it is only because of the work they did in building up the villain.

With this being said, I feel the villain and his motivations took the central stage in this story mainly because of the other characters being generally weak and not very likeable for the most part.

FBI Special Agent Pendergast seems a little bored by the whole ordeal, while D'Agosta exudes non-stop anger and frustration, even falling for traps I would have expected him to avoid in previous outings.

The victims themselves have few, if any redeeming characteristics, and the subplot about the penniless preacher felt out of place and pretty much unrelated to the rest of the story.

All in all, the cast is generally unremarkable, which ultimately works to the villain's advantage in the sense he will be the one character I remember the most.

The Final Verdict

City of Endless Night by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child is definitely not the duo's best work, neither collaboratively nor individually. It suffers from some flaws here and there, giving the impression this book was rushed for one reason or another.

Despite that, I believe it retains enough quality for me to recommend it as the kind of thriller you can just relax and read through for a bit of entertainment.

So long as you keep your expectations on a realistic level, I believe you will find this novel overall enjoyable if you're an ardent fan of murder mysteries.

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Douglas Jerome Preston Personal site Douglas Preston is an author of American origin who has, so far, made a career from writing technological thrillers and horror novels. Six of his works were penned alone, while the rest were written alongside with Lincoln Child. His solo works include his sole fiction novel in that category, Jennie, as well as non-fiction novels such as The Monster of Florence. His collaborations with Lincoln Child have, for one, given birth to the famous Agent Pendergast series.

Lincoln Child Personal site Lincoln Child is an American author who has authored a number of technological thrillers as well as horror stories. Six of his works were written alone, four of those being books in the Jeremy Logan series, while the rest were co-authored with Douglas Preston, and those include the famous Agent Pendergast and Gideon Crow series.