stilllife

"Hazen found himself marveling at the geometrical precision with which the circle had been formed. At one end of the clearing stood a miniature forest of sharpened sticks, two to three feet high, pushed into the earth, their cruel-looking ends pointed upward. At the precise middle of the clearing stood a circle of dead crows spitted on stakes. Only they weren't stakes, but Indian arrows, each topped by a flaked point. There were at least a couple dozen of the birds, maybe more, their vacant eyes staring, yellow beaks pointing inward.

And in the center of this circle of crows lay the corpse of a woman."

Medicine Creek, Kansas is the last place in the world where one would expect a serial killer to show up. In fact, the local police chief refuses to believe that it is one, just as he refuses to believe that the killer is local. Medicine Creek is a tiny town, swiftly dying as farmers slowly sell out to the big corn raising conglomerate Buswell Agricon. The only thing special that Medicine Creek has is Krause's Kaverns, a tourist attraction that has dried up along with the town, and the curse of the Forty Fives.

FBI Special Agent Pendergast enters this scene, and it isn't long before he is convinced that the killer is both serial and local. As the murders pile up, he realizes that this killer doesn't have a pattern, or any definable motivation -- the killer is of a type that Pendergast has never seen before. Pendergast, who has already begun making enemies of Sheriff Hazen, makes things worse when he hires Corrie to be his driver and assistant. A purple haired teen whose boredom has lead her to do things like steal an occasional car, she can't wait to get out of Medicine Creek. Despite her practiced "I don't give a ..." attitude, Pendergast soon draws her in, fascinating her with his weird but astute methods of investigation. They make an odd pair...the Goth Chick meets Hannibal Lecter with a conscious, but it works incredibly well. You begin to genuinely care about Corrie, and Pendergast finds himself in a situation that he seems to really enjoy, because he seems to truly respect her. I think both the reader and Pendergast enjoy watching her bloom, going from a rebel without a point to a young woman who sees the positive possibilities of her future.

The Hannibal Lecter description may displease some long time fans of Agent Pendergast. I mean no insult...I like a lot of characters, but something about this man has really caught my interest. He embodies all the "good" things that you see in Lecter, the things that draw you in...the incredible charm, the extremely sharp intellect, the powers of reasoning and deduction and the understanding of the darker side of man are all things you can say that both men have...not to mention refined (and picky) palates.

Pendergast goes beyond this...he has both a conscious and a quest, and is willing to spend his life tracking down these intelligent maniacs, and in doing this, saving lives. His cool, distant demeanor might come off as inspired by another famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, save that, at least in this book, he's not acerbic. He's too smooth, too elegant to use his wits to cut. At least not too much. In short, he's the kind of person you would like to admire...refined, chivalrous even, and dedicated. You get to spend much more time with him in this book than in Cabinet of Curiosities, another aspect of this book that I rather enjoyed.

The story itself is nearly impossible to put down. The murders are quite frightening, the plotting ingenious...and when I discovered the reasoning behind it all, I was very creeped out. There are many amazing scenes, including one at a turkey plant that will change the way you see the food that arrives at your table. This duo really knows how to tell a story, adding in many elements to take it from a simple detective tale to a full blown experience.

Reviewed by Cindy Lynn Speer for Mostly Fiction, July 2003