They say that you can never go back home again.

Oh, sure, you can physically be there a few times. You can stay overnight, sleep in your old bed, eat at the same table, but something will’ve changed. Home isn’t home anymore, it’s different. Whether it’s a week or ten years, you can never go home again — especially, as in the new novel, “Angel of Vengeance” by Preston & Child, home is nearly 150 years away.

Diogenes Pendergast had a hunch that Gaspard Ferenc was nothing but a small-time crook.

He’d followed Ferenc through the time portal to see what the man was up to and yes, it was some “get-rich-quick scheme” to take back to the twenty-first century. Diogenes knew that it wouldn’t work, though, especially since the portal had disappeared.

When he spotted his great-granduncle, Enoch Leng, with Ferenc, Diogenes knew that there’d be trouble. Leng must’ve known that Diogenes’ brother, FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast, was there in 1880, as was Aloysius’ partner, who’d come through the portal before Ferenc. Pendergast’s ward, Constance Greene, had traveled back some time even before that.

They’d come to this time and place to save a 9-year-old girl named Binky, who was actually Constance as a child. In later years, Constance had worked for Leng in his search for an extension of human life and at that time, she’d come to possess the Arcanum, a notebook with information Leng needed to “cleanse” the world. In his experiments on women he’d snatched, he’d murdered Constance’s sister, Mary, and endangered her brother, Joe.

Constance planned on killing the monster who’d killed her sister.

But in addition to having a hold on most of New York’s riverside area, Leng had one advantage: he knew about the portal, and he knew his plans to create a perfect world would be accelerated in the twenty-first century.

He only had to figure out when to get there…

Though it’s a fact that you could read “Angel of Vengeance” by itself — don’t. The truth is that you will be much, much happier if you go back to catch a few of the other Pendergast novels. This one relies on former books to fill in the blanks that you’ll undoubtedly have.

Should you decide to begin the series with this latest installment from authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, though, there are things you’ll need to know. The characters are crisp and perfectly wrought, placed inside a lot of cringeworthy violence, alongside a vile but brilliant madman who, in a time warp-twisty way, personifies every despot who comes after him since 1880. Beyond that, overall, the story is dark and dank, a little steampunk-ish, as if someone painted a portrait of a New York City circa 1881, and then wiped it with watery grime.

Fans of Preston & Child will rejoice that “Angel of Vengeance” is here, and that it leaves a few untied ends to tease you. Newbies to these authors will love this book — but go back a few in the series first.

“Angel of Vengeance” by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
c.2024, Grand Central
$30.00
352 pages