“So to test prophecy, holy man release Agozyen into the world to see who will bring it back. Because man who bring it back is the guardian of the nineteenth Rinpoche.”
Pendergast felt an emotion rare to him: utter surprise.
“Yes, friend Pendergast, you have brought the nineteenth Rinpoche to us.” Tsering looked at Pendergast with a slightly amused expression. And then he focused a pointed gaze on Constance.
She rose. “The guardian of the . . . excuse me, are you saying
the reincarnation of the Rinpoche? But that’s absurd—I was born long before he died.”
The monk’s smile deepened. “I do not speak of you. I speak of the child you carry.”
Pendergast’s surprise redoubled. He turned toward Constance, who was looking at the monk, an unreadable expression on her face.
“Child?” Pendergast said. “But you went to the Feversham Clinic. I thought—I assumed . . .”
“Yes,” Constance replied. “I went to the clinic. But once there, I found I couldn’t go through with it. Not even . . . knowing it was
.”
It was Tsering who broke the silence that followed. “There is an ancient prayer. It say:
”
Constance nodded, one hand drifting unconsciously across the slight swell of her waist. And then she smiled: a smile that seemed half secretive, and half shy.
A Word From The Authors
The Preston
-
Child Novels
We are very frequently asked in what order, if any, our books should be read.
The question is most applicable to the novels that feature Special Agent Pendergast. Although most of our novels are written to be stand-alone stories, very few have turned out to be set in discrete worlds. Quite the opposite: it seems the more novels we write together, the more “bleed-through” occurs between the characters and events that comprise them all. Characters from one book will appear in a later one, for example, or events in one novel could spill into a subsequent one. In short, we have slowly been building up a universe in which all the characters in our novels, and the experiences they have, take place and overlap.
Reading the novels in a particular order, however, is rarely necessary. We have worked hard to make almost all of our books into stories that can be enjoyed without reading any of the others, with a few exceptions.
Here, then, is our own breakdown of our books.
The Pendergast Novels
was our first novel, and the first to feature Agent Pendergast, and as such has no antecedents.
is the sequel to
.
is our next Pendergast novel, and it stands completely on its own.
is next. It is also a self-contained story (although people curious about Constance Greene will find a little more information here, as well as in
).
is next, and it is the first novel in what we informally call the Diogenes trilogy. Although it is also self- contained, it does pick up some threads begun in
.
is the middle novel of the Diogenes trilogy. While it can be read as a stand-alone book, readers may wish to read
before
.
is the culminating novel in the Diogenes trilogy. For greatest enjoyment, the reader should read at least
first.
, which you presently hold in your hands, is a stand-alone novel that continues to follow Pendergast and takes place after the events in
.
The Non-Pendergast Novels
We have also written a number of self-contained tales of adventure that do not feature Special Agent
