CEMETERY DANCE by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Pendergast - the world's most enigmatic FBI Special Agent - returns to New York City to investigate a murderous cult.

William Smithback, a New York Times reporter and his wife Nora Kelly, a Museum of Natural History archaeologist, are brutally attacked in their apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Eyewitnesses claim and the security camera confirms, that the assailant was their strange, sinister neighbour - a man who, by all reports, was already dead and buried weeks earlier.

While Captain Laura Hayward leads the official investigation, Pendergast and Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta undertake their own private - and decidedly unorthodox - quest for the truth. Their serpentine journey takes them to an enclave of Manhattan they never imagined could exist: a secretive, reclusive cult of Obeah and voodoo which no outsiders have ever survived...

This is the first Pendergast book I've read, and I have to say that I'm impressed. What starts out as a brutal attack resulting in murder, turns into the search for a zombii, and leads to a mysterious place called the Ville.

This book is a clever, thrilling story that takes the reader on a quest for the truth in a murder investigation. By the time D'Agosta and Pendergast embark on their investigation, you find yourself swept away with every new detail they uncover. It begins with an almost supernatural premise - a dead man murders a well-known reporter and attacks his wife. But it ends in a place you won't guess until you actually get there.

This book features an array of POV shifts, which moves the story along and allows us to see what's going on with different people at different stages. And while I thought everyone's personal situation was interesting, I found myself intrigued by Nora Kelly's journey the most. It's sad and disturbing. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. Not only did she lose her husband, but was being constantly stalked by the dead man and winds up in an even worse place.

Cemetery Dance is an amazing book that'll keep you hanging on every step of the way. You'll finish each chapter, anticipating the next one, but not wanting to let go of what you've just read too quickly. The plot is intricate and unveiled one little bit at a time, keeping the reader as confused as the characters. There's one shock after another, and by the time you finally know the bizarre truth, you'll feel even more for Nora.

If you like thrillers with a story that'll get your heart pumping and your mind wandering, this is defintely a book you have to check out!

Cemetery Dance, June 2009, ISBN 0752890689, Orion Fiction Paperback