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3.0étoiles sur 5
Hey! That's Steven King's cornfield!, Janv. 12 2009
Even though Steven King did it first with Children of the Corn, P&C (Preston and Child) have managed to find their own way to turn an innocent cornfield into a blood spattered battlefield leading to all nine circles of Hell. Make no mistake, "He Who Walks Behind the Corn" is still out there - but this time it's Still Life with Corn.
Unfortunately character descriptions in this novel were repetitive and uninspired, which I guess is okay if you're too busy flipping pages to care who's who (happens in the last quarter of any P&C), but it's darned unsatisfying if you were hoping for a little more insight into Special Agent Pendergast. In Still Life with Crows all you really find out about Pendergast is that people in farming communities find him odd. In fact he totally creeps them out. They can't help telling themselves, in their heads, over and over again, how creepy he looks and acts. In fact it gets so that you start wondering if maybe they're right. You ask yourself: How would I feel about a skinny silver eyed dude who insists on wearing black in the full heat of summer and still manages to have a cool dry handshake? Why, I'd think he had malfunctioning sweat glands, that's what. Ew. Maybe that's more gross than creepy. But you see what I mean. To see Pendergast through the eyes of gentle farm folk is to see a man who could very well be a creep.
Still, an interesting thing about this novel is how the mighty Pendergast is taken down a notch by these humble farm folk, who, in spite of having been stereotyped to within an inch of their white trash lives, still manage to answer the question 'Where is the murderer hiding?' before Pendergast can, even with all his money, experience, and creepily big brain complete with time-travel functionality.
All in all I'd classify this novel as a decent commuter read. It doesn't matter if you can't remember who's who (commuting demands novels that can be read in 20 minute increments); the action blows away that otherwise exasperating need for character development. And while this particular novel is a bit more horror than mystery, it makes for a nice textural change if you've just burned your way through all the others in the series (which I happen to be doing, and in no particular order, just to keep things interesting).
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3.0étoiles sur 5
A Good Attempt, But..., Juil 19 2004
Par Un client
Ok I was thrilled when after 4 months of searching for the latest in the series by Preston and Child. I have read all the other books by them that feature the protagonist Pendergast and was looking forward to what they were going to do with him this time. Quite honestly, I was disappointed. The book started out so well, with such a creepy and surreal setting. And despite what many other readers said, the plot moved along very well, and was not boring in the least bit. The problem lies in that the authors seemed to have run out of ideas for good antagonists. They go through such pains to show how he is of superhuman strength, but never explain why he kills. The books leaves too many things unexplained. While still a decent book, I would recomend Cabinet of Curiosities as an introduction to these authors.
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3.0étoiles sur 5
Started Great, but then...., Juil 16 2004
The ending was so BLEAH that I couldn't give this book more than 3 stars, which actually pains me because it started out soo promising and I completely LOVE the character of Pendergast. I actually found the book really hard to put down because of the wonderful way the two author writes, the words just flow. And even though after a while, I realized really nothing much was happening in between murders, I was still fascinated, mainly because of Pendergast. But what eventually killed the book for me was the conclusion. The way Pendergast figured it out was kind of hokey; I really hated that self-hypnosis plot device which I believed was first introduced in Cabinet of Curiousities. It smelled of a cop-out to me, when it would've made so much more sense and had been so much more respectful to the character had Pendergast figured things out solely from doing old fashioned detective work, which he had been doing up to that point. Then the revelation of the identity of the murderer was nothing short of ridiculous; how it took Pendergast so long to figure something was askew is beyond me, considering where he was (I don't want to go into any more details for that will be wandering into the territory of spoilers). Lastly, it was also disappointing to see Child & Preston eventually sticking to the old stereotype about small town hick sheriffs when in the beginning, it had appeared that they wouldn't take that hackneyed route. I actually applauded when the Sheriff took over the first crime scene with just as much intelligent authority as any big-city cop would do, but alas, that image was completely undermined towards the end of the book when he started living up to the stereotype.
Anyway, I would recommend this book only because of the character of Pendergast and Child & Preston's very smooth writing style, but in terms of plot, I would give it a thumbs down.
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