I enjoy Pendergast. I like characters who have hidden facets or might be more than they seemed, and having something like the first third of the novel told from everyone's point of view but the titular character certainly helps create that sense. (I don't consider the two previous novels to be Pendergast books, simply book where Pendergast happens to be in them). And even some of the scenes where we are in his POV help that along.

But this is where we start entering the 'trying so very hard' area.

At times, we spend so much time in Pendergast's head it slows the already slow pace of the story. The the authors try sonar to make this a horror novel they artificially end the chapters at the expense of the correct passage of time and expects me to believe that a character is in the same, close to death, position all the while the other characters are running around the city.

Then they try so very hard to make this a comedy, we end up with a character in a job there is no way he could have worked his way to, or even been appointed to.

They try to make this a mystery by making it impossible for the reader to figure it out on their own. When the mystery is revealed, if I'm wrong, I want a 'now I get it' reaction, not 'where did they pull that from?'

And then they go and kill ones of the few likable characters in the story, while keeping alive the one unlikable one.

I understand that this is an ear.y worm, but relic shows they are capable of more, and I am looking forward to being proven right.