White Fire by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

White Fire by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child is the authors’ latest in a series featuring Special Agent Pendergast, eccentric FBI agent and Corrie Swanson, an impulsive criminology student being mentored by Pendergast.

Corrie needs a thesis project to complete her criminology degree and learns of a grave yard being relocated in Roaring Fork, Colorado.  The town was founded as a silver mining boom town in the mid-19^th century but is now a popular ski resort and getaway for the extremely wealthy.  The graves are being moved to make room for a massive country club in an exclusive residential development containing several multi-million dollar mansions.  The human remains from the graves date back to the 1870’s and include skeletons of several miners who were attacked by a grizzly bear.  Corrie hopes to examine the bones and gain forensic knowledge about animal attacks of humans.

But trouble greets her soon after she arrives in Roaring Fork.  Police Chief Morris denies her access to the skeletal remains so she breaks into the warehouse where the bodies are being stored.  She does her examination of one skeleton and discovers the body was cannibalized not attacked by a grizzly bear as legend suggests.  Chief Morris catches her in her quest and arrests her for breaking and entering and disturbing a grave.  The prosecutor under the influence of Mrs. Kermode, the town matriarch offers Corrie a plea bargain of ten years in prison.  Broke financially and in spirit, Corrie writes to her mentor Agent Pedergast explaining her situation and her illegally obtained findings.

Pendergast swoops in like a superhero to save the day for Corrie.  He challenges the town’s legal right to relocate the graves and gets charges dropped against Corrie.  He then joins the investigation of the cannibalized remains and begins to contact descendants of the victims to gain permission to further investigate.  From his days as an Oxford scholar he recalls reading about a meeting between two famous authors in London in the 1889.  At that meeting, Oscar Wilde told Arthur Conan Doyle about a tale he heard while traveling in America promoting his books.  The tale described a summer of terror in Roaring Fork, Colorado when a grizzly bear attacked and killed several miners.  The tale however, suggested the attacks were by humans and the prey were cannibalized.  It becomes Pendergast’s theory that the mercury used in primitive silver ore refining, caused delusions and insanity in the mine workers and turned them into murderers and cannibals.

But before Pendergast and Corrie can prove their theory, more tragedy strikes the elitist community of Roaring Fork.  One of the spectacular multi-million dollar mansions is set on fire with the family trapped inside.  Then a day later another mansion is intentionally incinerated.  Chief Morris is overwhelmed and asks Agent Pendergast for assistance.  Then a sniper takes a shot at Corrie as she drives down a mountain road and soon after her dog is decapitated.  Apparently her mission to dig into the past is unearthing some present day threats for someone.  But discovering ‘who’ and ‘why’ has become a dangerous game.

White Fire is my first Preston and Child read.  The writing is very well crafted and full of intrigue and mystery.  The plot is a bit contrived but the connection to Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle is fascinating.  It is in the character development where I have trouble.  Corrie is too short tempered and self-serving to be likable.  The Pendergast character is too ridiculous to be taken seriously.  He is supposedly a handsome, well dressed, articulate, refined, Oxford educated master detective who happens to be an FBI agent stationed in North Dakota… hmmm.  Plus he has enough freedom from his bureaucratic employer to run off to London for a week to research a case, first class accommodations all the way.  At one point he uses an ancient Tibetan mind technique called Chongg Ran to meditate and visualize events that took place more than a century ago… really?  Not your stereotypic FBI agent to say the least.  For this reason the label ‘airplane book’ seems appropriate... it will hold your interest but not bowl you over.