Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
An Agent Aloysius Pendergast novel

According to the authors, the Pendergast novels are stand alone books but if you want to read them in succession, here is the list:
Relic
Reliquary
The Cabinet of Curiosities
Still Life With Crows
Brimstone
Dance of Death
The Book of the Dead
The Wheel of Darkness
Cemetery Dance

I've really enjoyed the Pendergast novels and this one was no exception. A character that had been in the previous novels, William Smithback, journalist, is murdered at the beginning of this novel. It seems that one of his neighbors had died 2 weeks before and came back as a Zombii (zombie) to kill Smithback for his stories on animal sacrifice in New York. He was going to do an indepth article on a weird cult squatting in Inwood Park on the northern most end of Manhattan. The 'Ville is an old church with a lot of add-ons that became inhabited around the Civil War by this cult and they are committing animal sacrifices. This is the only loophole I find in the story...this cult remains in this building in the end. Can you imagine a prime piece of property in Manhattan pretty much given to a group of squatters who turn out to be a dangerous cult that commit animal sacrifices and kidnap it's replacement members? In this day and time? This cult is a group of men numbering 141. No higher and no lower. When it gets lower through death, they kidnap a street person. What!?! Animals brought in weekly by the truckload for sacrifice...what!?!

But I'm getting off track. Agent Pendergast, Detective Vincent D'Agosta, and Bill's wife, Nora Kelly get on the track of this zombii and the vodou (voo-doo) that created it. Preston/Child always have something so fantastic that you think it's going to be a horror story of supernatural proportions, but, by the end, there is a real reason and real actions, it's not supernatural after all. This makes their Pendergast novels a fun ride!

There are some graphic, gross scenes so I don't recommend it for anyone younger than 16 yrs old. But the book is a great read and I didn't put it down.