Book 24 (2019) Crimson Shore by Preston and Child

Blue Labyrinth, 2019 Book 22, includes a preview of Crimson Shore. I was intrigued.

Agent Pendergast's investigation of the theft of a rare wine collection turns into something more when he discovers a bricked up niche behind the wine racks. He finds a part of an index finger bone. Someone had been chained and walled up alive and tried to claw his way out. Pendergast and his ward Constance Greene discover that the sleepy seaside town of Exmouth has some dark secrets.

I enjoyed the book--yes, there is a but coming.

It seems that Preston and Child had to keep upping the ante.

It wasn't enough to have a two-century old murder and two modern murders.

It wasn't enough to have a mentally and emotionally disadvantaged feral killer.

It wasn't enough to have a coven of town witches descended from the real witches who fled Salem in 1692.

It wasn't enough to have a coven-bred deformed humanoid monster killer with a tail who resembled one of the witches' gods.

Pendergast discovers something more: someone had cleverly tampered with the locks to the monster's cell door and shackles. It was the mysterious figure Pendergast and Constance had previously seen on the dunes, and he was someone they both knew.

It is revealed in the next book, The Obsidian Chamber, that the mysterious figure is Diogenes Pendergast, who everyone believed was killed in The Book of the Dead.

That development was a bit much for me. There have been fake-out deaths in the series before such as Pendergast, Helen (Pendergast's wife) Margo Green, and Corrie Swanson. I'm starting to compare these fake-outs to those in the classic daytime soap operas. Death doesn't mean anything when everyone and his brother can return from the death. There's only so much amnesia, lost at sea, and cunning plans for revenge that I can stand. Let's hope it stops here.