the summary of the new Pendergast book, "Fever Dream"

"At the old family manse in Louisiana, Special Agent Pendergast is putting to rest long-ignored possessions reminiscent of his wife Helen's tragic death, only to make a stunning-and dreadful-discovery. Helen had been mauled by an unusually large and vicious lion while they were big game hunting in Africa. But now, Pendergast learns that her rifle-her only protection from the beast-had been deliberately loaded with blanks. Who could have wanted Helen dead...and why?

With Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta's assistance, Pendergast embarks on a quest to uncover the mystery of his wife's murder. It is a journey that sends him deep into her past where he learns much that Helen herself had wished to keep hidden. Helen Pendergast had nursed a secret obsession with the famed naturalist-painter John James Audubon, in particular a long-lost painting of his known as the Black Frame.

As Pendergast probes more deeply into the riddle-the answer to which is revealed in a night of shocking violence, deep in the Louisiana bayou-he finds himself faced with an even greater question: who was the woman he married?"

--He dragged D'Agosta with him to sort through his dead wife's stuff? Of course he did. He gets D'Agosta to hang out with him for practically everything. (drworm pointed out that D'Agosta is not always necessarily the best detecting person, but Pendergast still thinks he is indispensable anyway. Awwwww.)
--Calling it now: It was Diogenes who loaded Helen's rifle with blanks. And then, he put on a lion suit...
--I'm glad that Helen was an obsessed nutcase. She married into the right family.
--A secret life revolving around birdy pictures? I am aware that Audubon was a very important naturalist and that he did a lot to revolutionize American conservationism, but unless you'd married someone who despised birds, why would you keep this secret? Even if there's something deep and dark about Audubon that the authors made up, who in the world would suspect something dangerous to your obsession with the man who painted birdy pictures?

I am so excited for this book just to learn how Doug and Linc plan to make this Audubon thing plausible.