Amazon.com.au:Customer reviews: The Cabinet of Curiosities (Agent Pendergast Series Book 3)

Top positive review

Great story that gets you in

Reviewed in Australia on 25 June 2020

I have pretty much every book written by these authors. I love the books and Agent Pendergast is an extraordinary character. Reminds me a bit of Poirot. The books are very much stand alone so each one is different.
Highly recommend reading one of the Preston/Child books.

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Matt Holland

Great story, not a good looking book.

Reviewed in Australia on 23 June 2020

This was one of three Pendergast novels I didn't own in hard cover, so I wanted to finish my collection. This edition has the printing right on the hard cover of the book, not a plain hard cover and dust jacket like the 200+ other hard cover novels I own. I have actually never seen one like this before in a full size hard cover. It doesn't fit in with the rest and looks cheap. I will know from now on to investigate properly buying books from here. I realise it is an old story, but I just bought Still Life With Crows brand new in the normal hard cover format, so to open this was really disappointing.
If you are trying to make a set I would advise against this edition.

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Toyroom

Aspect Ratio!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 September 2018

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Book itself typically very good and well covered in the other reviews. I have given the item two stars rather than the story it contains. Humans usually read paperback books that are 5:8 width to height ratio. This particular book (red cover) is about 4:8 and very thick. Why is this relevant? Well, when you try and read it you find out. A thick, narrow book is quite difficult to hold with one hand and the relatively narrow pages mean that the lines are very short. Again, most humans find 10 long lines easier on the eye than 15 shorter ones. This is what I call a "QWERTY" problem. Things should be made in the format we are all used to using and not some other shape which detracts from the enjoyment of the item or event. I ended up buying a second hand different edition from ebay so as to finish the story in comfort. All sounds a bit pedantic but in a 650 page novel, it got pretty annoying.

Kindle Customer

Disappointing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 March 2016

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Not as good as I hoped. A lot of detail that is not that interesting which detract from the storyline. Made myself stick with it to the end. Not a good holiday read.

JJP Santa Barbara Ca.

Meh....

Reviewed in the United States on 20 September 2019

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I hung in there with this book , but in the end it was just ok. The entire second half of the book was just too contrived. It's not like I'm incapable of suspending my disbelief for a few hours in the interest of a story. I've read and watched full on fantasy sci-fi with rapt attention because the characters acted in predictable ways that comported with who they were and the story was compelling. Here I found myself flipping through pages in the latter chapters to get through long winded explanatory material while saying "yeah yeah we all know where this is going, get on with it already". I was supposed to be swept away by suspense and instead I found myself bored and pissed.

Add to that the fact that some of the premises and assumptions were just idiotic. Example: Career NYPD employees are all fat and stupid. Lifelong cops-police captains for crying out loud- have no clue how their own investigative divisions function and create search warrants out of whole cloth without even a nod to the fourth amendment. To make matters even worse, some unknown judge actually signs the fishing expedition and then they all have a big press conference based on no evidence whatsoever.

But I guess my biggest complaint is that, with more than one author, the book comes off as if written by a committee, and the committee members all got their favorite twists crammed into the story whether they made any sense or not. I have read these guys before and enjoyed their work, as I did the first quarter of this one. Then the plot went sideways and they lost me. Even Pendegrast's endless ruminations became tiresome to the point of irritating. I should have quit when I was ahead.

10 people found this helpful

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Too long

Reviewed in the United States on 25 January 2021

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Way too complicated and too much detail. I like the interaction of Pendergast with others. That’s the draw. All these complicated plots take away from the main character. I stopped reading half way. The writers need to simply these stories.

RONALD

Missed opportunity or just trash?

Reviewed in the United States on 22 August 2005

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I seriously considered a 1 star rating but settled on two stars because the opening scene captured my imagination and kept me hoping this would turn out to be a good yarn.

While digging out the foundation of an old dilapidated building in New York, construction workers find a large number of skeletons entombed in small crypt - like spaces and an initial exam reveals signs that there has been some antemortem surgical (or ritual?) manipulation in the bones of their spine. Then the story begins to deteriorate and gets exponentially worse with each subsequent chapter.

I have come to expect a need to rely significantly in suspension of disbelief when it comes to Preston and Child's books but this was too much. The protagonist, Agent Pendergast makes even the most accomplished of the Marvel Comics superheroes look like incompetent babies: this guy can walk out of his physical body and engage his mind in time travel, he can survive stabbings and shootings and still catch his man. He is a New Orleans based FBI agent that is driven around by his personal chauffeur in a Rolls Royce and manages to operate out of his jurisdiction with complete impunity. This "superior man" is constantly seeking the "help" of the pretty archaeologist Dr. Nora Kelly but it is very plain he doesn't need her help - he is superhuman anyway and constantly walks her through the problems and feeds her the answers. She is just window dressing for the authors' superhero.

Almost as implausible as Pendergast, is his rival: a real estate developer turned arch-villain. This guy's obsession to steal the formula for immortality miraculously confers upon him refined neurosurgical skills.

In the UK they might call this balderdash. This side of the pond we call it trash.

4 people found this helpful

R. A Chinn

The book itself is a curiosity, and not a particularly good one!

Reviewed in the United States on 25 March 2018

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Like a wet log, it never quite burns. I'm about 25% through this book, and it seems like the authors were given a writing class assignment for 10000 words, but they only had 100, so they used every trick in the book to stretch their 100 into 10000. Kind of like literary hamburger helper. Exquisite descriptions, excruciating detail, the myriad details of a back story... but while some may like all of this detail, it is like unravelling a golf ball: it takes a L O N G time.

Pendergast is sort-of interesting, but I'm not going to spend more time getting to know him.

Enough is enough. I'm giving up.

4 people found this helpful

blucaribe

Part Nancy Drew-Part Scooby Doo

Reviewed in the United States on 20 August 2013

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I think I'm in the minority in my dislike of this book and FBI Agent Pendergast. I thought the plot was more like a Scooby Doo adventure from the Spooky Old Museum, to "Nancy Drew", oops, Nora, and Pendergast possessing more medical knowledge than an experienced surgeon. Oh. Maybe that's the idea. Anyway, I didn't enjoy it. I forced myself to finish it, but won't buy another. Just couldn't suspend belief enough to swallow any of it.

2 people found this helpful

mkmck

Very slow read

Reviewed in the United States on 31 August 2010

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I found this novel quite difficult to finish. If I had never read any of the authors previous works I would not try any of their other novels. I felt that I really did not "know" the characters since they had been in previous books that I had not read. They were not "fleshed out." The premise of the story is interesting but it is a slow read. Good luck.

One person found this helpful

J. Gregory Richardson

Misses the mark

Reviewed in the United States on 21 February 2018

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This book reads like a formulaic NY Times Bestseller. While there's a real attempt with character development, almost all of it misses. The setting and underlying theme of the story are intriguing but the story fails to engage in any meaningful way. Without characters you truly care about and a plot line that holds together, there's not much here.

2 people found this helpful

Babyface

too little spice

Reviewed in the United States on 12 September 2016

Verified Purchase

The word "gingerly" is used to describe how so many things are done it's ridiculous - bad editing.
Good story but badly told

One person found this helpful

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