Published by Grand Central Publishing on August 17, 2021
Bloodless gets off to a promising start by reimagining the D.B. Cooper airplane hijacking. Decades later (roughly in our present), a bloodless body is found in Savannah. Is a vampire roaming the streets of Savannah? It seems more likely to be the work of a particularly gruesome murderer, although sucking all the blood from a body is not an easy task. Aloysius Pendergast and his current partner, Armstrong Coldmoon, are diverted to Savannah to investigate. Pendergast’s ward, the mysterious Constance Greene, goes along for the ride. More bloodless corpses soon appear on the southern landscape, sometimes in a genuinely chilling scene.
Bloodless develops an interesting cast of characters, the kind of people who make satisfying suspects in a murder mystery, including an evil senator who is running for reelection, a documentarian who is filming a series about supernatural events, a scam artist who purports to capture digital images of spirits and demons, and an elderly lady with a collection of antique weapons who lives as a hermit in a hotel’s upper floors. Bloodless also delivers the spooky atmosphere that is almost a necessity in a story set in Savannah.
Some Pendergast novels have flirted with supernatural themes. I haven’t been taken with those stories. I prefer the stories that portray Pendergast as a modern version of Sherlock Holmes, complete with eccentricities that complement his deductive skills. For much of the novel, Bloodless seems like it could go in either direction — a supernatural force might be afoot, perhaps a vampire, or a murderer might be using superstition to mask his killings.
Unfortunately, Preston and Child take the story in a third direction, one that is more science fiction than horror. I don’t want to spoil it, but I will say [stop reading here if you don’t want to risk knowledge of a surprising plot point] that it involves a monster from another dimension. Now, the multiverse is a popular theme in science fiction novels, one that sf writers explore in interesting ways. As they have demonstrated in other novels, Preston and Child are not adept at science fiction. Their explanation for the sudden appearance of blood sucking monster in Savannah is just silly. (Hint: it involves turning a dial too far on a machine that makes no sense.)
The story crashes at the end. I was left wondering why it would be easier for one guy with a handgun to kill a monster in its own universe when it resists death in our universe after being shot with a bazooka, a Tommy gun (yes, seriously), and any number of bullets fired by Glock-wielding cops.
I was also left wondering about all the plot points that were set up in the novel’s first half. It seems like Preston and Child began to write one novel, couldn’t figure out how to end it, and decided to abandon it while writing an ending to a different novel.
I enjoyed the D.B. Cooper angle. I enjoyed the detailed setup. I admired the atmosphere and the careful construction of secondary characters. The authors add a touching scene at the end that’s almost redemptive. If the novel’s strengths hadn’t been counterbalanced by a preposterous conclusion, I would have been a happy reader. At best, I can recommend the first two-thirds of the novel and a brief chapter at the end. You might want to quit after the first two-thirds and make up your own ending if you want to get the most out of Bloodless.
RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS