City of Endless Night

One of my favorite Pendergast books. The bad guy has an inventive motivation. There are a number of
complicated crimes with tricky connections between them. I always prefer the books where Pendergast is solving the mystery rather than being the mystery. And this is a mystery worthy of Pendergast.

I re-read this and I think I was talking about a different book above.
I still think this is a good Pendergast story up to the conclusion.
Then suddenly the authors and/or Pendergast seem unaware of a number of cultural icons.
The bad guys motivation has been used in many dozens of stories, probably in every form of entertainment.
Heck, it was used in a episode of Gilligans island.
The resulting chase is pretty exciting but there are two more popular culture elements used in the story and they are quite detracting.
I'll put the details in spoiler tags below.
But I stand by my statement that I enjoyed the book and much prefer stories that are not just about Pendergast and his family history.
The bad guys motivation is the "Most Dangerous Game" trope and when we discover this, I almost put the book away. Surely the authors and/or Pendergast were familiar with this.The chase starts with Pendergast trying to figure out which of two exits the bad guy will use.It read just like the iocaine poisoning scene in "The Princess Bride". It was hilarious there and here it is distracting because all I can think about is Wallace Shawn and Cary Elwes and laughing.Lastly, both Pendergast and the bad guy discard their shoes during the chase through a huge abandoned building full of junk and broken class. Did neither the authors of Pendergast see "Die Hard"?