Loved this book, read it in two days.
I am a huge Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child fan. (They often write as a pair, and I've read a few done by Preston alone. This was my first Lincoln Child as a solo writer.) So when I saw this book available at my local library and read the title...
I shall admit, the title grabbed me, then the author - I could not resist. I love books in which old, weird buildings play a great part, even to the extent the setting becomes almost another character. Give me castles, decrepit mansions, underground catacombs, dilapidated farmhouses, abandoned factories, churches and schools and I am in reader's heaven. I was in heaven reading this book.
Jeremy Logan, an enigmaologist - one who studies or investigates strange occurrences, including those which might include paranormal or preternatural events - is asked to look into the death of a distinguished scientist, or fellow, at a think tank in Newport, Rhode Island. Okay, Newport, oceanfront mansion meticulously described, a mysterious death, even more mysterious 'goings-on' in and around said mansion. Throw in a quiet, unassuming MC and a lot of creepy or weird side characters, and of course, the requisite attractive woman - well, you have to have a trope here or there - and you have a near-perfect and absolutely atmospheric suspense thriller. Or mystery, as I'm often not exactly sure how to classify the Preston/Child novels, whether done as a pair or as a solo work.
I'll be honest. I sometimes hate to pick up a new Preston/Child or Preston (or now Child) book because anything else I have going - something literary or highbrow or supposedly so - gets tossed in a pile. (I am the same way about Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford series.)
At any rate, from a Lincoln Child fan who must absolutely go get the first three books in the Jeremy Logan series, five stars.