Author Q&A

Hachette Book Group: Agent Pendergast continues to be such an enigma. Will Fever Dream reveal everything about him or will mystery surround him more than ever?
Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child: Fever Dream is the first book in a trilogy. By the end some of Pendergast's (and his family's) deepest secrets will be revealed. But every secret seems to lead to another, and so there will never be a point at which we know everything about Pendergast. There will always be mystery surrounding him -- and his wife, Helen. Because Fever Dream reveals that Pendergast's wife had even more secrets than he did.

HBG: What was the reaction of fans and readers to the unfortunate demise of a beloved character in your previous book, Cemetery Dance?  Will we see more beloved characters off-ed in Fever Dream?
DP&LC: They were terribly, terribly upset. One fan wrote and said she had to take to her bed for a few days to recover from the shock. The point is, no one is safe in our novels -- not even Pendergast. Anything can happen. Bad things also happen to good people in Fever Dream...

HBG: You have a new narrator for the audio edition of your upcoming series in 2011. Are you excited to hear a new voice for your audiobooks? When you wrote the main character, did you have a voice in mind?
DP&LC: That is very exciting! We do have a voice in mind -- arch, faintly ironic, ever so slightly derisory, gentle at times, sometimes a wise-guy, delivered with a mellifluous voice but a distinct lack of accent. He is not a creature of any one place in the world -- he is a wanderer, peripatetic.
 
HBG: Have you listened to any good audiobooks recently?
DP: Just listened to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo -- outstanding!! 
LC: Recently enjoyed The Trial and Death of Socrates narrated beautifully by Dick Hill.
 
HBG: What’s your favorite thing about audiobooks?
DP&LC: At their best, they add another dimension to the reading experience. This is the way stories were meant to be told.