Still Life with Crows

Still Life with Crows is a thriller novel by American authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, released on July 1, 2003 by Grand Central Publishing. It is the fourth novel (behind Relic (1995), Reliquary (1997) and The Cabinet of Curiosities (2002)) to feature FBI Special Agent Pendergast as protagonist. Plot Agent Pendergast visits Medicine Creek, Kansas after a gruesome murder occurs. With the help of local teenaged misfit Corrie Swanson, he continues to investigate as more citizens are killed. Pendergast is soon led to believe that the murderer must be a member of the community. He soon discovers that the murders are connected to an old curse. Detailed plot A mutilated corpse is found in a cornfield in Medicine Creek, Kansas, drawing Agent Pendergast there. Since he is technically on vacation, he has no official status or resources, and is barely tolerated by the local Sheriff, Hazen. The victim, a petty con artist and relic hunter named Sheila Swegg, was found naked in a clearing, with her neck broken. A grisly tableau around the body, consisting of crows impaled on arrows, indicates the work of a serial killer. Pendergast surprises the police when he notices that the arrows are genuine 19th century Cheyenne artifacts, and moreover are almost impossibly well-preserved.