Dance of Death is a novel by American authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, published on June 2, 2005, by Warner Books.

However this is not a true act of kindness; Diogenes has a dark agenda and needs his brother alive in order to carry out his nefarious plans.

English professor Dr. Hamilton is giving a lecture when he goes crazy, tearing at his face, and stabbing a piece of broken glass into his neck, killing himself.

The letter, which is meant to be opened in the event of his death, mentions that Diogenes, Pendergast's brother, is planning a crime and that since he is dead, it falls to D’Agosta to stop him.

Another strange death occurs, where a man is hanged out of his 24th story apartment, and falls through the glass ceiling of a restaurant.

The two people killed thus far were Pendergast's favored teacher and his closest childhood friend, a painter, Maurice Duchamp.

D’Agosta is trying to gather information for Pendergast on the Duchamp murder, but has to sneak around and move out of Hayward's apartment in order to do so.

Smithback is thwarted in his attempt to escape the sanitarium, and Diogenes' actual target turns out to be Margo Green, whom he stabs at the museum.

Diogenes, in his created personality of Hugo Menzies, a museum curator, is stealing the magnificent red diamond Lucifer's Heart.

Diogenes arranges to meet Pendergast at the Iron Clock railway turntable under Penn Station to make the trade.

"[2] Similarly, Barbara Lipkien of Bookreporter wrote that "Dance of Death may be a bit more melodramatic than the others in this series, but overall the book holds up.

"[3] Writing for the Library Journal, Jim Ayers called the novel "A rare second book in a trilogy that actually improves on the first.