Book Review – Bloodless by Preston & Child – Exciting Novel
Table of Contents
My Rating – 3.5 out of 5
Plot Summary – Bloodless
One thing I noticed about this series, that the last names of most characters are rather unusual – Pendergast, Coldmoon, Delaplane, Sheldrake, etc. Now coming back to the book, Pendergast, his ‘ward’ Constance, and FBI partner Agent Augustine Coldmoon are returning from a successful case closure in Miami, Florida. But right at that point, their boss Pickett pulls them out to Savannah, Georgia to look at multiple homicides over the last few weeks – with one shocking commonality – all the bodies are sucked dry i.e. they are totally bloodless when found! As bodies start piling up, even Agent Coldmoon grudgingly takes an interest in solving these ghastly crimes.
Savannah is a quaint old Southern town – with a history of atrocities from its slave-keeping days and God knows what else. The architecture is classic, the gentry with old-world charm and mannerisms. Even the haunted house stories are centuries old. Hence the slew of bloodless corpses turning up raises many of those supernatural or occult theories. Is it the Savannah Vampire, or some other bloodsucking monster suddenly come to life? Into the middle of such superstitious folklore, comes the FBI and its enigmatic face in successful investigations – Aloysius X L Pendergast! While he seems to stumble upon a scenario that would solve the case right at the beginning, it turns out to be a false dawn.
Right at the beginning of the novel, there is a prelude, which seemingly has nothing to do with the story that follows. In 1971, D.B. Cooper, a middle-aged man, hijacks a commercial airliner, asks for two hundred thousand dollars and four parachutes. Once he gets it all, he lets the passengers go and makes the pilot take off for Mexico. But, midway, he jumps off with the money and is never seen or heard again! Despite a large-scale manhunt, neither he nor his money is ever found. The connection between this and the Georgia murders is established right at the end of the book.
Now, 50 years later, the FBI is investigating the Savannah murders, while rumors run riot that this is the work of Vampires. In two parallel threads, there is a power-crazy Senator from Georgia whose re-election is coming up and he doesn’t want the negative publicity or the murders remaining unsolved. This leads him to create pressure on the local cops and the FBI to clear the murders before the grand rally in Savannah. The lure of the supernatural and the spooky has drawn in loudmouth documentary producer Bernie Betts and his filming entourage, keen on capturing – real or staged – footage of the Savannah Vampire.
He is assisted in this by a supernatural researcher called Moller who has apparently devised a camera that can capture images of ghosts, skeletons, witches, and other manifestations of the supernatural and the spooky. For this bunch of people, the murders are fodder for their hankering for fame and publicity. In their overzealous approach, these people end up messing about with the police investigation, but for Pendergast!
Conclusion – Book Review of Bloodless
This is a pacy read once you get used to the narrative style of the writer duo – Preston & Child. The plot is intricate, weird in parts and they make it all look rather believable. Pendergast is prim and proper, his eloquence matches that of an English gentleman from the ’60s but his wits match that of the legendary Sherlock Holmes and Monsieur Hercule Poirot! Like the legendary detectives, Pendergast depends on deductions, shard intuitiveness, and attention to detail. One does kind of start loving him after a while…
All readers of the police investigative thrillers or generally mystery thrillers will love reading this and I highly recommend this book to you all, Happy Reading!!
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