Two Graves is the final book in the Helen trilogy by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child which begins with Fever Dream in 2010 followed by Cold Vengeance in 2011. In the first book, Fever Dream, special FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast and his beloved wife Helen are on a trip to Africa when Helen is killed by a lion. Or at least that is what Pendergast believes for 12 years until he discovers his wife’s death is neither real nor accidental, but has been staged. In Cold Vengeance he continues to uncover more strange and ominous details about Helen’s background. He realizes that there is much about her that she has never revealed to him. In Two Graves the adrenaline-pumping pace really picks up with Pendergast’s and Helen’s brief reunion in Manhattan’s Central Park where she is suddenly kidnapped by a well-organized gang and Pendergast is wounded. He then traces her whereabouts to Mexico and a botched attempt to capture her causes him to retreat to his New York apartment where he becomes a recluse, sinking into a state of guilt-ridden depression and drug addiction. He shuns everyone, including his longtime associate from the New York City Police Department, Vincent D’Agosta, who is trying to convince Pendergast to help him with a serial murderer dubbed the Hotel Killer, who kills and mutilates his victims in different New York City hotels while allowing himself to be videotaped as he enters and exits. He then leaves a piece of his own cut off body part as a “calling card”. When Pendergast finally realizes that the murderer is specifically taunting him the chase begins. There are also many other characters and subplots going on to keep the reader in anticipation and finally a chase to a Nazi refuge in Brazil that reveal Mengeles-like twin experimentation and genetic manipulation.
Like all Preston and Child’s thrillers featuring special FBI agent Pendergast and Lieutantant D’Agosta you will have a hard time putting this one down. Their deeply drawn characterizations and constant level of high suspense make this a terrific thriller.