Yo! Maurice! (part two)

[rileyc]

Weekend was mostly demented, as weekends around here tend to be, so between that and the ongoing mouse-less situation I didn't get a chance to continue my Fever Dream squee. Here goes, then, with part one here.

(Apologies for the no doubt plentiful typos that will occur.)

Comments

[slip_f18]

That whole segment of them posing as a pair of contractors and breaking down the wall -- Vinnie doing most of the breaking, of course -- and then hustling the painting out of there, and the subsequent wild care chase was a treat all the way, and might be my all-time favorite Pendergast-D'Agosta caper.

OMG, yes! This was such a treat, including the mental image of Pendergast in plaid shirt and khakis!

Oh, and what is with them messing with the timeline?

I thought something felt off. Thanks for doing the research. That *is* a lot to fit in to the past 12 years. I kept wondering what kind of super-duper Mycroft-esque secret ops Pendergast was really up to pre-FBI.

[rileyc]

I know, it's hard to picture him in anything but his designer undertaker suits, but it's fun when that mental picture does come together.

It was a huge surprise to find out he was only considering joining the FBI at the start of the book. He has definitely been busy. 2004 alone was stuffed to the gills with everything from the Diogenes drama on through Cemetery Dance.

He had to have been up to something pre-FBI, to be able to so smoothly move onto that stage of his life. Maybe we'll find out what that was in future books. Way back in Relic there was something about him being in the military, surviving some operation in Cambodia. Since the authors established his year of birth as 1960, though, he'd have had to be pulling that off when he was about 12, though, and even for him that's a bit much to swallow.

[rileyc]

Hey, if you get the chance scroll down to the other comments here, the one from pianolessdevil, in particular, to get some great news about the next book!

[kleenexwoman]

God, I loved the Pendergast-D'Agosta interaction in the first half. The weird shit they go through seems so natural by now, and it was incredibly fun reading all the little disparate steps and bits.

I actually sympathized with Laura more than ever in this one--partially because she did come around to "getting" Pendergast, partially because with some of the sketchier things Pendergast pulled, her reserve was...a little more understandable. There were parts where Pendergast kind of freaked me out a little.

I actually looked up Audobon's "Black Frame painting" on Google. Couldn't find nothin'. not that that necessarily means everything...

I kind of think Constance left the baby back in Tibet and was carrying around a doll. Or she went even more nuts, the monks took the baby, and gave her a doll she thought was the baby. Post-partum depression is a killer in 110-year-old teenagers.

The timeline drives me nuts :( There is no way he's in his early forties. I think they're basically winging it.

[rileyc]

I can buy him being in his early 40s, it's their constant messing around with the timeline that makes me nuts. There should be an official rule about things like that: Gentlemen, you can change your mind about when stuff happened, and how old your characters are one time, and one time only. Further fiddling around will result in disgruntled readers smacking you upside the head

[kleenexwoman]

That's right, he's goin' to Scotland! :D

I think I might have stopped reading if he'd been out of commission. At this point, Pendergast just really isn't the same without his Vinnie. *schmoop*

[rileyc]

Oh yay! That's wonderful news! Hope he gets to shoot Judson.

I wouldn't have stopped reading if he was just out of commission for a book; if he'd actually been killed, though, that could be a whole other story. Bill's death was bad enough, Vinnie on top of that would have been way too much.

And yep, Pendergast needs his Vinnie to keep him sane and grounded.

[slip_f18]

Oh, happy day! Another book on the way, with the boys on the prowl in Scotland?! Hurrah! Yep, Vinnie's gonna have to kick some Esterhazy butt!

Regarding the discussion in these threads about Constance's baby -- that's a good theory about her not really having the baby along on the ship in the first place. It explains why Pendergast can be so cool about it. Now she can be tucked away with her books while the monks try to root the evil out of what must be one realllly weird kid.

Hey, this gives me a thought. Maybe Pendergast has been taking some version of the anti-aging serum cos it seems like he's perenially about 40 years old!