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.
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, and a disdain for the lobster roll, but will consume convenience store staples, like beef jerky, when tasks require such expediency.
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.
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.
Pendergast carries a variety of hidden tools, such as lock picks, flashlights of various sizes, test tubes, syringes, and forensic chemicals.
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.
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 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.