Review: The Obsidian Chamber

The Obsidian Chamber by Douglas Preston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love how the latest Pendergast books have gone for a color scheme not unlike my own Red Rain series, although with the first three colors being in the opposite order from what Preston and Child are doing. The fourth, however, is a black-themed title just like my fourth Red Rain book. After the ending of Crimson Shore, this book, I expected to be the darkest and most horrifying Pendergast yet.

Turns out it was a bit damaged by hype for me, The Obsidian Chamber. It started out wonderfully, reminding me a lot of the early chapters of Two Graves with Proctor giving chase across the world as Diogenes, somehow back from the dead (as we long suspected) having taken Constance and spirited her away. Afterwards, however, more storyline threads - including where the hell Agent Pendergast got around to - cropped up. Sadly, many of these - particularly the Diogenes and Constance storyline, which went for some kind of disturbing Beauty and the Beast, Feyre and Rhysand-type dynamic - tended to clog the plot and keep it from advancing at nearly the same breakneck pace as the early chapters.

That said, though, it's Agent Pendergast, and at least we can confirm very quickly that he is, in fact, still alive. Because unlike Diogenes, Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast must never, never die.

So, overall, The Obsidian Chamber is a pretty serviceable Pendergast thriller, but compared to the intensity of Crimson Shore, and especially the world-class White Fire, it does feel just a bit lacking. I'm not done with this series by a long shot, but I do hope the quality takes an uptick with the next installment.

And that they finally start work on movie adaptations of these books (besides Relic, unless they intend to reboot that one) soon enough.

View all my reviews