Crows & Brimstone

Sometimes I put the wrong octane rating of gas in my car. Other times I've been known to make a left-hand turn in my car instead of a right. But one thing I DO know is when an author of a book spins a tight, concise tale, yet still manages to draw in my interest. Writers Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (“Still Life With Crows,” “Brimstone,” etc.) have effectively done this to me, enticing me to return to their FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast books like a teenage boy on a second date after hitting a grand slam on the first. But a little background information is needed before I discuss particulars used by my current favorite authors.

Perhaps I've drawn you in right here, reading this post. (Apparently so since you're still plowing along!) I'm using the first person point of view (POV) here, speaking to you as if I'm sitting here, right next to you. Notice how I’m continually using the pronoun “I?” That’s an immediate give-away when you’re immersed in a book featuring the first person. Limitations to this method, as you can probably imagine, are if I can't see, feel hear or otherwise sense something, it can't be included in my conversation here.

There are three other methods of story delivery. The second person POV is generally used in genres catering to video games, self-help and travel articles. The pronoun “you” presents itself conspicuously in these works. And books written in the third person have the pronouns he, she and they dispersed generously throughout the story.

That leaves us with the final device of this category. It’s called the omniscient POV. An author using this method tells us a story from an all-knowing, god-like view point. Every single detail, nuance, feeling and fact, no matter how trivial, is presented to us via the god-like individual in a third person narrative. Omniscient also means past and future events can be revealed to us, too. A sub-category of the omniscient POV is the limited POV. This simply means while that same all-knowing viewpoint is utilized only one character is speaking or thinking at a time. And now, faster than our teenage friend up above can utter, “of course I love you,” I’ll switch back to my main men, authors Preston & Child.

Using a limited omniscient POV, our authors of note let us know what’s transpiring in their stories, advancing plots along steadily & assuredly. But I’ve noticed another interesting device used in the Pendergast stories. In both “Still Life With Crows” and “Brimstone,” a character close to Pendergast is used to ask those questions we’d ask if we were on the crime scene with him. In “Crows”, Corrie Swanson is a young Goth girl who is taken under the Special Agent’s wing. She, in turn, becomes a first hand witness to his indiosyncrasies, reactions to situations, ask clarifying questions what we’d ask them, etc. In “Brimstone”, Sgt. Vincent D’Agosta performs similar duties.

Granted I’ve only read the two books in this series but I believe by now inconsistencies in their stories would have been flushed out. All aspects in the stories have come to, IMHO, successful conclusions. In all fairness, I did uncover one area that had me a bit confused. While questioning the CEO of a company in “Crows,” Pendergast apparently guesses the combination of a safe. I note guesses because we aren’t informed if the numbers he recited to the CEO was, in fact, the safe’s combination. I thought this apparent oversight odd for the otherwise tightly knit story lines constructed by Preston & Child.

That said, you can start their series with “Relic.” But be warned – you’re apt to miss scheduled appointments, burn your dinner and if you dare read at night, oversleep the next morning. These books are extremely engrossing.