Pendergast: Book 23
Publication Date: January 27, 2026
From the #1 New York Times bestselling duo Preston and Child comes the Agent Pendergast origin story—a golden opportunity for longtime fans and new readers to learn about Agent Pendergast’s strange and shocking first case.
It only took six months for the life of Special Agent Dwight Chambers to crumble around him. First, he lost his partner, and then, tragically, his wife. Returning to work at the New Orleans Field Office, Chambers is dismayed to find himself saddled with mentoring a brand new FBI agent—a certain A. X. L. Pendergast. As Chambers tries to pull himself together, his enigmatic and exasperating junior partner pulls an outrageous stunt that gets both of them suspended.
Pendergast welcomes the banishment, because it gives him the opportunity to investigate a peculiar murder in Mississippi that has captured his fancy. Chambers grudgingly goes along. What starts off as a whimsical quest swiftly turns into a terrifying pursuit, as Chambers and Pendergast uncover a string of grisly, ritualistic killings that defy any known serial killer profile.
Thanks in large part to Pendergast’s brilliance and unorthodox methods, they solve the case and find the killer… and that is when the true horror begins.
The creative combination of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child continues with the latest installment featuring the infamous A.X.L. Pendergast.
This time, the authors take readers back to the beginning when the new FBI agent tackles his first case. Pendergast offers a feast full of remarkable characters, dynamic dialogue, and grisly murders.
As an origin story, it offers a perfect introduction for readers new to the series. Pendergast and his senior agent, Chambers, bring fresh eyes to a cold case.
Pendergast’s quirkiness is on full display, which makes readers curious to know more. The authors craft a compelling storyline as the agents uncover various clues.
Pendergast pits a new FBI agent against a criminal mastermind in an intriguing cat-and-mouse thriller.
Douglas Preston has published thirty-six books of both nonfiction and fiction, of which twenty-nine have been New York Times bestsellers. He is the co-author, with Lincoln Child, of the Pendergast series of thrillers. He writes about archaeology and anthropology for the New Yorker Magazine, and he worked as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University. He currently serves as President of the Authors Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest association of authors and journalists.
Lincoln Child was born in Westport, Connecticut in 1957. He received a degree in English from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. After graduation, he obtained a position as an editorial assistant at St. Martin’s Press and eventually became a full editor in 1984. He left St. Martin’s Press in 1987 for a job at MetLife and began writing. Child has co-written numerous books with Douglas Preston including Relic, White Fire, Cold Vengeance, Riptide, Thunderhead, The Wheel of Darkness, Cemetery Dance, Gideon’s Corpse, Blue Labyrinth, and Two Graves. In 2003, he published his first solo novel entitled Utopia. His other solo works include Death Match, Deep Storm, Terminal Freeze, The Third Gate, and The Forgotten Room.
