Author: Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Title: The Wheel of Darkness
Source: Darmstadt Public Library (Stadtbibliothek Darmstadt)
Pages: 508 (paperback)
My Reading Time: 2 1/2 days
Language: Slightly advanced American English, salted with technical terms from seafaring and Buddhism
Rating: *** ( out of 5)
The very special FBI-Special Agent Alosius Pendergast is drawn into his eights investigation by taking a time out from his job and re-visiting a hidden Tibetan monastery. Here he once took his first lessons in Buddhism. This time, he is shown to a very secret part of the monastery, where some object – the Agozyen (meaning: Darkness) – was stored that arrived at the monastery a thousand years ago and has been hidden ever since.
It was brought there from India and its purpose is to “cleanse the earth entirely of its human burden”. Not even the monks were allowed to look at it – but now it has been stolen. So the monks ask Agent Pendergast to find the Agozyen for them and to bring it back into the monastery.
While this first part of the story which involves Buddhist culture and Tibetan monks is the strongest and most interesting, the rest – genre-wise located somewhere between crime scene investigation, “big passenger ship in danger” and X-files – is tied together with high dosed tension. So even when you think: “I’ve read that before” (which I did quite often) its very hard to stop reading.
The reader is also recompensed with some quite surprising developments and an unusual denouement in the end.
While its entertaining to read, it is (like the other books of the Pendergast series) by far not as good as the amazing Preston / Child thriller “Thunderhead”.
Lead me into all misfortune. Only by that path can I transform the negative into the positive.
cited “from an ancient prayer” in the book
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