Aloysius Pendergast

Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast is a fictional character appearing in novels by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. He first appeared as a supporting character in their first novel, "Relic" (1995), and in its 1997 sequel "Reliquary", before assuming the protagonist role in the 2002 novel "The Cabinet of Curiosities".
Pendergast is a special agent with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He once worked out of the New Orleans Field Office of the FBI, but resides in New York City and works out of the New York Field Office; he frequently travels out of state to investigate cases which interest him, often those appearing to be the work of serial killers.
Background.
Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast was born in early December 1960 and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Pendergast retains his Southern manners and mellifluous Deep Southern accent. He studied anthropology at Harvard University (graduating summa cum laude) and received two D. Phil. degrees, one in Classics and the other in philosophy, from Balliol College, Oxford.
Pendergast once served with the U.S. Special Forces in the elite "Ghost Company", a spiritual successor to the "Blue Light" detachment (now Delta Force) with Michael Decker and Howard Longstreet, his superiors at the FBI, and Proctor, who later became his bodyguard and chauffeur. The symbol for this company was "a ghost on a blue field, decorated with a star throwing a thunderbolt at a cat's eye with the number nine as its pupil, symbolizing the nine lives [its] members [...] were alleged to have..." The motto was "Fidelitas usque ad mortem" (Loyalty unto death). Most of his military records are classified and unknown.
A number of years before the series began, Pendergast was married to Helen Esterhazy Pendergast. She was presumed killed in a hunting accident while in Africa (mauled by a lion), but reappears in the "Helen Trilogy".
Pendergast is generally described as being stoically aloof and eccentric, though his ineffable politeness and unerring intellect imbue him with an irresistible charm or enigmatic sense of danger if the occasion should call for it. Well-learned in many subjects, he converses easily with doctors, scientists, intellectuals, vagabonds, highly specialized masters of specific disciplines, and people of a wide variety of language and culture alike. He is a master of psychological manipulation, disguise, and improvisation.
Pendergast appreciates the finer things in life, including expensive cuisine and wines. Food and drink he enjoys include Château Pétrus wine, antipasto, green tea of only the purest and most spiritual kind, gelato, and steak tartare. He has a great distaste for opera. His interests encompass a wide variety of vastly differing walks of life, yet all focus on the enlightenment of the human mind, body, and soul. He spent a year in Tibet studying the deep meditative art of Chongg Ran, taught to him by the monks of the Gsalrig Chongg monastery.
Pendergast is polyglot, demonstrating mastery of French, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Cantonese, and appears semi-fluent in Mandarin. He also has some knowledge of Japanese and Portuguese. He communicates with one of his housekeepers, who is deaf and mute, using American Sign Language.
Appearance.
Pendergast is always described as being tall and slender. He is fit, graceful in movement and physically powerful despite his slight frame. His skin is very pale and many people refer to him as "corpse-like" or as an "albino". He has platinum blond hair, and eyes that are most often described as silver or gray. Pendergast religiously dresses in black, bespoke suits (of Italian design) made of a special blend of wool made only in the 1950s, thus he is often described as looking like an undertaker.
In many cases, Pendergast's normal appearance is irrelevant. A master of disguises, he has fooled even close acquaintances on several occasions.
Accoutrements.
Pendergast owns a 1959 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith (he used to have two but sold one). His chauffeur and personal assistant is a mysterious man named Proctor. All of Pendergast's suits are custom-made in Italy, and his shoes hand-made by John Lobb of London.
Pendergast's personal sidearm is usually a customized .45 Caliber Les Baer Government Model M1911 pistol. In "Relic" he carried a .45 Colt Anaconda double-action revolver. He owns a Signature Grade Colt 1911 .45ACP tuned by pistolsmith Hilton Yam (now owner of 10-8 Consulting).
Pendergast maintains an apartment at The Dakota in New York City, and later inherits and renovates a Beaux Arts mansion near Harlem from his great-granduncle in "The Cabinet of Curiosities". In his Dakota apartment, which is actually three apartments combined, there is a full zen garden where Pendergast performs the tea ceremony and sometimes meditates.
Though he is a scrupulously scientific man, he wears a talisman or amulet on a chain, that consists of his own modified version of the Pendergast family crest: a lidless eye over two moons, one new and one full, with a phoenix (the original version featured a lion).
Pendergast carries a variety of hidden tools, such as lock picks, flashlights of various sizes, test tubes, syringes, and forensic chemicals.
The Pendergast family.
Officially, much of the Pendergast's family wealth came from pharmaceuticals, and the family was sufficiently old and established in New Orleans to conduct themselves as aristocracy. However, there are hints that much of the fortune actually came from patent medicine ("snake oil"), and that some of the family's customers suffered permanent injury or even death from its effects.
Pendergast also confides, to his shame, that a streak of insanity has afflicted his family for generations, such that many of them have been convicted of horrible crimes, and ended their lives in asylums.
Chronicles.
Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast appears in several stand-alone novels and stars in two trilogies. All of these books have been jointly written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
Proposed television adaptation.
On February 1, 2016, authors Preston and Child confirmed that producer Gale Anne Hurd would be heading a television adaptation of the novels "Relic" and "Cabinet of Curiosities". The adaptation, simply titled "Pendergast", would air on Spike TV. The first season would focus on "Pendergast investigating a present-day crime mimicking a century-old mystery — that links to his own family's dark past."
On November 8, 2017 Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child posted on their Facebook page that the series, under development at Paramount, was cancelled.