Book Review – Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child’s “Still Life with Crows”
Small Town, America can be a frightening place if you look at it certain ways, especially if it’s located in the Great Plains.
When you consider the remoteness of some towns, the hundreds of square miles of corn fields, and a place where neighbors sometimes know a little bit too much about their fellow neighbors, and there you go. A perfect small town for one person can be a complete nightmare for another. Especially when a madman begins murdering random people and butchering their remains, leaving them in puzzling scenarios.
The murdering madman in a small town in Kansas is the basic plot for Still Life with Crows, the fourth book written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child to feature their common protagonist, FBI Special Agent Pedergast. This is a horror story set in the heart of the country and features a murderer so bizarre that he does not fit the profile of serial killers. His behavior is unpredictable at best, brutally terrifying at worst.
Still Life with Crows begins with a bizarre murder victim discovered out in a corn field in the town of Medicine Creek, Kansas. Sheriff Dent Hanzen uses the circling turkey vultures to help locate the corpse. Hanzen is hoping that the corpse is technically outside of his town’s district, leaving the crime scene to the Kansas State Patrol, but he’s not so fortunate. Besides, he’s annoyed when watching the troopers screw up evidence, miss clues, and leave enough room for technicalities for the worst of lawyers to keep the criminal out of prison. Sheriff Hanzen may be lazy, especially in the heat of the summer, but he also hates letting criminals go free.
Perhaps even more bizarre than the murder is the sudden arrival of FBI Special Agent Pendergast. He was informed of the murder through his contacts in the police and FBI networks, and the special agent arrives on scene to conduct an investigation even though he’s well outside of his home district of New Orleans, Louisiana. The technicality is that FBI Special Agent Pendergast simply claims that he’s “on vacation” and the murder investigation is one of his hobbies. He never states why he has so much interest in this particular murder victim.
The murder victim, Sheila Swagg, is found lying naked in a clearing. Her neck is broken, her limbs are positioned in a strange posture, and several dead crows are impaled into the ground surrounding Miss Swagg. It turns out that the crows were killed with a set of arrows that once belonged to the Cheyenne Indians from the 1800s. The arrows are in mint condition and worth a considerable amount of money to the right collector. Why they were used in such a ritual is a mystery in itself.
So far the only clue to the killer’s identity is a set of bare feet footprints that leads through the corn field and right to a small creek. Despite that, Pendergast speculates that the killer is somebody who lives within the city limits of Medicine Creek. This is a small town, and if anybody walks, rides or drives into the town, then somebody would have seen the outsider. None of the residents have reported any strangers in town, except for FBI Special Agent Pendergast, so the killer is hiding amongst the dwindling population in the small town.
In the Medicine Creek diner, Pendergast makes friends with Smit Ludwig, a reporter for the Cry County Courier newspaper. Ludwig needs inside information about the murder case and Pendergast needs to know who is who in this small town out in the middle of nowhere.
Pendergast uses Ludwig to be introduced to most of the town’s residents that evening during a banquet that is welcoming Dr. Stanton Chauncy, an agricultural scientist from Kansas State University. Dr. Chauncy is visiting the town and comparing it with the neighboring town of Deeper, Kansas. The winning town will have corn fields planted with experimental corn designed to be converted into ethanol fuel. That winning town will have a boost of visiting and permanent people, all of which will need places to stay, meals to eat, and whatever else residents do for fun. In other words, it’ll greatly boost the economy of either small town.
Most of the town people welcome Dr. Chauncy and hope that he’ll choose Medicine Creek for the experimental corn, especially Sheriff Hanzen. It appears that the only people upset with the visiting professor are the local farmers.
After the meeting, Pendergast goes to the police station and meets Corrie Swanson, a high school senior who pushes her tests of the laws and is frequently arrested for the smallest of offenses. When she’s not in trouble with the law, Corrie lives in a trailer park with her verbally abusive and alcoholic mother. Corrie can’t wait until the end of her senior year in high school, and upon graduation, she intends on putting as much distance between this town and herself as possible. Pendergast recognizes the potential for excellence in the girl and bails her out of jail. He then pays her a handsome salary to be his personal assistant and driver during his stay in Medicine Creek, Kansas.
It doesn’t take long until more murders begin appearing, from a dead dog missing its tail to a janitor from a turkey processing factory missing his scalp. While each murder victim is found in a different pose and situation, common elements begin appearing. Pretty much everybody is killed with a broken neck, and some people are brutally mangled with old Indian weapons. This also includes being scalped. One of the murder victims had his body cavity emptied and filled instead with snakes, lizards and the dead dog’s tail.
As more people are murdered, Sheriff Hanzen begs for Smit Ludwig to keep the murder newspaper stories to a minimum. If Dr. Chauncy continues reading about murders in this small town, then he could change his mind and grant Deeper the corn project, sending all of that business to the neighboring town. Ludwig agrees to stay quiet, though the reporter finds himself as another of the killer’s victims.
The talk about the phantom killer that nobody seems to see or hear brings about talk of ghosts and “The Curse of the Forty-Fives.” When Pendergast wants to learn more about that story, Corrie Swanson takes him to meet a man named “Bushy Jim,” a deranged Vietnam war veteran who’s more convinced than ever that Medicine Creek is on cursed ground.
The story behind “The Curse of the Forty-Fives” is that forty-five Confederate war veterans returned home to Medicine Creek. They were survivors of a brutal war and eager to continue beating and killing those who stood in their path. Back in the 1860s and 1870s this meant the local Indian tribes. The gang of forty-five Confederate soldiers took to the plains and attacked all Indians they could find, men, women and children alike. All of them were beaten and killed.
One day while resting by some large mounds, a group of Indian warriors suddenly appeared out of nowhere and viciously killed the forty-five soldiers. Well, all except for one of the soldiers. One of them was injured and remained hidden while watching the massacre of his fellow soldiers take place. The rest of the men were all killed and scalped and the last remaining victim was brutally “rounded,” a bloody technique involving the removal of the ears, nose, lips and scalp, leaving the victim with a bloody round head. That last man cursed that very ground as the Indians gathered their fallen soldiers and rode into a dust storm, disappearing for all eternity. It’s said that the dust storm both brought and removed the Indian warriors, going so far as to erasing all of their tracks and evidence of their involvement in the massacre.
Now with the discovery of the murder victims and the Indian artifacts dating to over a hundred of years, it’s looking like the killer himself may be a ghost of the old Indian tribe, returning to resume killing everybody occupying his tribe’s former ground. Or the killer could be somebody from the neighboring town of Deeper, somebody with the intent of convincing Dr. Chauncy to give the contract to Deeper instead of Medicine Creek.
By this point Sheriff Hazen has had enough of FBI Special Agent Pendergast and his involvement in the murder investigation. Pendergast keeps popping up when he’s not wanted, and the FBI man tends to be correct a little too often. Sheriff Hanzen does not want to believe that the killer is from Medicine Creek, so he goes out of his way to get Pendergast a cease and desist order from the FBI itself.
Special Agent Pendergast is now off the case, but he still stays involved in the investigation. He goes to Dodge City to pursue a hunch after conducting something similar to a remote vision or astral projection, sending his spirit back in time to learn more about the massacre of the Forty-Fives.
Sheriff Hanzen heads to Deeper, Kansas as a nasty storm system is brewing out west and heading towards Cry County. After Dr. Chauncy was murdered by the killer, the contract from Kansas State University was pulled from Medicine Creek and awarded to Deeper. This proves that somebody from Deeper was behind the killings, and that somebody must be the man named Lavender, a powerful man who owns most of the businesses in town. If Deeper sees the boom in its economy from the contract with KSU, then he’ll be living the easy life. If not then his businesses will go bankrupt and he’ll lose everything. It fits the puzzle perfectly.
Hanzen tells this theory to the sheriff of Deeper, and everybody agrees. The story fits. It’s believed that a man named McFelty, Lavender’s go-to guy when it comes to dirty work, is really the serial killer. Lavender was caught lying when he was interviewed about the location of McFelty’s whereabouts, claiming that he was away and visiting his sick mother. In truth McFelty’s mother had been deceased for twenty years.
The only question is where was McFelty hiding? He wasn’t in a house, nor was he staying out in the corn fields. Search planes have been combing the area for days and didn’t report anything unusual in the corn. The only explanation is that McFelty was hiding underground. Medicine Creek just happened to have an underground cavern system named Kraus’s Kaverns, named after Mr. Kraus himself. Everybody who knows about the town’s history also knows that the back of the Kraus’s Kaverns, a place off limits to tourists, was used to brew and distribute moonshine. It was the perfect hiding place for a serial killer, especially since the cave only saw a handful of tourists on a given year.
While Sheriff Hanzen was in Deeper, Deputy Sheriff Tad Franklin was given instructions to warn the residents about the approaching dangerous weather. The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Cry County and the surrounding area, and it was up to the sheriff’s department to help warn the residents. While he was out, Franklin received a call about a “monster” from a local farmer.
It turns out that the “monster” was sighted by a young boy, and while the father believes it’s all a mistake, Franklin notices suspicious footprints leading away from the boy’s window. He follows the footprints to the neighboring turkey processing factory and slips inside to investigate. The factory had been closed for the day, but as Franklin notices, somebody else is still inside of the spacious building. He follows the sounds and tries to apprehend the suspect, but the killer gets the best of him. The killer easily kills Tad Franklin and carries away his body.
Meanwhile, Corrie puts together the clues and also determines that the killer must be living in the Kraus’s Kaverns. She doesn’t know who exactly is hiding in there, but she’s determined to scout the location and see if the killer is really hiding in the cave system. Finding him there would prove that Pendergast was correct in his theory. Corrie picks a lock and enters the cave. At the end of the tour she slips past the railing and continues investigating the cave, quickly locating the old illegal distillery from the days of Prohibition. She slips and loses her flashlight, and there in the dark she’s captured by the killer. Corrie is hauled deep into the cave system, much deeper than anybody could ever imagine.
Sheriff Hanzen arrives at Kraus’s Kaverns with a few men for backup. Before he enters the cave, FBI Special Agent Pendergast also appears and tries to warn the sheriff about the killer and Corrie possibly being a hostage. Hanzen doesn’t want to hear about it and tries to have one of his men arrest Pendergast, but the FBI man gives him the slip. As the massive storm system bears down on Medicine Creek, Hanzen leads his small assault force into Kraus’s Kaverns and tries to capture McFelty.
It turns out that Corrie was kept alive by the killer so that he could play with her. We’re not talking about a rapist but rather a playmate. She gives him the slip but he captures her again and puts her in a deep pit.
Sheriff Hanzen’s men are ultimately split apart into smaller groups and most of them are killed throughout the cave system. The killer moves quickly, silently, and he is incredibly strong. He seems like more of a monster than an actual man.
Pendergast discovers a secret entrance to the cave system by the large mounds at the site of the massacre from 150 years ago. Inside the cave he discovers the missing Indians and their horses, all of them killed by suicide in a symbolic manner. He continues further and eventually meets up with one of Hanzen’s lost men, and the two of them find their way through the caves and rescue Corrie.
Pendergast, Corrie and the other policeman are forced to climb a rock wall to escape, but while doing so they’re attacked by the killer. The policeman is killed, Pendergast is injured, and Corrie is almost killed. The shotgun blasts from Hanzen’s weapon stop the killer and send him falling into a deep ravine. The three of them limp their way out of the caves and return to the house of Ms. Kraus, an older woman who took care of the caves and also ran the bed and breakfast where Pendergast was staying.
Ms. Kraus tries to attack and kill the police officers, calling them baby killers, but Pendergast subdues and calms the woman. It’s all over. The people of Medicine Creek are safe once again.
Not long after the horrific battle in the cave, Corrie is paid a visit at her trailer by the killer. He breaks his way into the trailer and tries to attack Corrie, but she flees into a corn field. She manages to call Pendergast, and the police department come to her rescue just before the killer can make his final move. The man is caught and hauled to a mental institution.
Even though Medicine Creek was not awarded the scientific contract from Kansas State University (a science project that Pendergast mentioned would actually be bad for the local crops and most likely devastating to the town in the end), the town had a boom in economic activity from people wanting to explore the true extent of the Kraus’s Kaverns cave system. The true size of the caves rivaled that of Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.
Before he left town, FBI Special Agent Pendergast paid Corrie $25,000 for her efforts in assisting him with the investigation and helping to catch the killer. She tries to protest receiving that much money, but Pendergast claims that he inherited the money from a distant relative who earned the money in unethical methods. It’s hinted that this is from the events in The Cabinet of Curiosities. In addition, Pendergast sends Corrie off to a special boarding school in New Hampshire, allowing her to escape from the town of Medicine Creek that very day. She does so and also heads to Pennsylvania to try to find her long-lost father.
<MEGA SPOILERS>
So what really happened in Medicine Creek?
It’s revealed that the killer is actually the son of Ms. Kraus, a person that virtually nobody in the world knew about. Ms. Kraus had the baby at a young age but her father didn’t approve of the child or the child’s father. Instead of giving away the baby and embarrassing her family’s name, Ms. Kraus chose to keep the baby and hide the child deep in the cave system. She brought him food and constantly read him children’s books.
Ms. Kraus’s son, named Job, lived for fifty years in the cave, never leaving it once and making contact with the outside world. As a result his body adapted to the eternal darkness of the caves, and Job developed very strong arms from all his years of climbing. The man never grew out of his childish mindset, and he amused himself by finding bones of creatures and using them to create grotesque patterns.
Everything changed for Job the day that Shelia Swagg, a local scavenger, accidentally discovered the secret entrance to the Indian burial site within one of the mounds. There she encountered Job and paid for it with her life, and it was there that Job found the hole to the outside world. Job escaped from the caves and explored Medicine Creek at night, using his skills to easily catch and kill innocent people who were mistakenly in his whereabouts.
It turns out that the killings taking place during Dr. Chauncy’s visits was just an eerie coincidence. There was no sinister plot by the town of Deeper to murder people and steal away the agricultural contract from Kansas State University.
Job was captured in the corn field and placed in a sanitarium to have the remainder of his days being examined by teams of psychiatrists.
And the reasons for the brutal killings and the ways that the bodies were displayed? That was all from old children’s nursery rhymes. Job remembered the rhymes and tried to make the dead people look like the subjects in the rhymes.
<END OF MEGA SPOILERS>
So was Still Life with Crows a good book?
As with pretty much everything else written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, merely labelling a story like this as “good” is insulting to the story. This is a great novel, a worthy addition to the others written by these fantastic authors!
The killings were brutal, the killer himself was one creepy individual, and the action in the caves added the element of claustrophobia into the element. I had a few small problems with the descriptions handling the severe weather (I’m a certified weather geek), and I would have liked a few more clues that pointed in the direction of the story’s wicked plot twist. Then again, with too many clues the wicked plot twist wouldn’t be so wicked now, would it?
Fans of the FBI Special Agent Pendergast series will feel right at home with Still Life with Crows. Just make sure to read the other books first or you may miss some of the more subtle moments in the story. For example, did you notice that Corrie Swanson was reading a book called Beyond the Ice Limit? That’s a fictional sequel to Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child’s sci-fi thriller The Ice Limit, an awesome book, by the way.
Still Life with Crows is an expertly written book with a solid story and great twist in the end. Be warned though; you’ll lose a LOT of sleep as you approach the ending and find the need to keep reading more and more and more, waiting, just waiting, until we finally learn the true identity of the killer and how the whole story fits together.
