There is no sword in “Gideon’s Sword” (February 2011, hardcover). There’s probably some literary reason for the title, but still, I kept expecting a sword to figure into the plot. That’s the only criticism I can come up with for this new Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child novel, which launches a new investigator.
Preston and Child kind of stumbled into their (and readers’) interest in Special Agent Pendergast, the lanky FBI man with an unusual diet and endless places in his jacket for evidence bags. He was introduced in the authors’ first collaboration, 1995’s “Relic,” and gradually the authors veered away from a sci-fi/mystery focus and toward a personal focus on Pendergast (and to a lesser extent, the cop D’Agosta, a sidekick of sorts). “Cold Vengeance,” due out in August, is followed by “Special Agent Pendergast” in parentheses on Amazon, suggesting that the marketing approach has shifted, too.
But Gideon Crew is a more deliberately designed investigator, and the series featuring him will be more intentionally serialized. So while “Gideon’s Sword” seems more calculated whereas the Pendergast works have been organic, Preston and Child wouldn’t have launched a new character if the didn’t think he was worth it.
Crew is a more likable version of James Bond, and “Gideon’s Sword” unfolds like a better version of a James Bond yarn. The 30-something Crew uses a bit of computer hacking, a bit of fisticuffs and a lot of savvy to vindicate his late father; the case had been the only thing in his life to spark his passion. Stealing art from galleries is his only vice; really, he’d just like to relax in his isolated New Mexico cabin and fish for trout.
But he gets sucked into another case, in which — in a fresh, economy-based sci-fi twist — the fate of the world hangs in the balance, and that too sparks his passion for following the clues as an independent sleuth (with a few helpful — and eccentric, natch — contacts). Almost accidentally, he ends up with a couple of love interests ala Bond, and there’s also a scary-as-heck Bond villain on his heels.
There’s also a major personal development in Gideon’s life that goes unresolved in this novel, which goes to show that the authors are serious about doing a whole series of Crew books.
I don’t want to make “Gideon’s Sword” sound too much like Bond, though. In the end, it’s a Preston and Child book. Although the action takes place all over the world for most of the novel, the plot comes to a head in the authors’ familiar stomping grounds of New York City. We’re introduced to an obviously fictional yet utterly fascinating deserted island in Long Island Sound replete with a ghost town and graveyard of dismembered body parts. That’s right: The hilariously grisly moments we’ve come to love from P&C are very much present in “Gideon’s Sword.”
The authors clearly enjoy writing Gideon Crew, and they are adept in working in the world espionage element in a way that’s both compelling and easy to follow. But best of all, “Gideon’s Crew” is still very much a Preston & Child novel.
