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    Relic
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    Relic
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    Relic
    Ebook507 pages8 hours

    Relic

    By Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    From bestselling authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child comes Relic, the thriller that introduces FBI Special Agent Pendergast.

    Just days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum's dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human...

    But the museum's directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders.

    Museum researcher Margo Green must find out who--or what--is doing the killing. But can she do it in time to stop the massacre?

    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateNov 27, 2007
    ISBN9781429989794
    Author

    Douglas Preston

    Douglas Preston, a regular contributor to the New Yorker, has worked for the American Museum of Natural History and taught English at Princeton University. With his frequent collaborator, Lincoln Child, he has written many bestselling thrillers including Relic, which became a major motion picture, The Book of the Dead and Cemetery Dance. He is also the author of the bestselling The Codex, Tyrannosaur Canyon and Blasphemy.

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    Reviews for Relic

    4/5

    1,761 ratings84 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Nothing is better than a scary, suspenseful novel by great storytellers. Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child ratchet up the scare factor with gory descriptions, unbelievable scenarios where the hero(s) are needed to step up and assist, and a fantastical storyline. The pages just kept flipping until the very end.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. I got hooked right away! It follows a young woman who works at a museum and is working to put together a collection for an upcoming exhibit. Strange things start happening - people disappear, people are found brutally killed, there are strange movements and sounds in the dark - and our female protagonist decides to investigate. I was hooked so quickly and wanted to know what was actually happening. The reveal towards the end is definitely quite unrealistic (though it's explained away in a fairly scientific manner that makes it sort of work - similar to a Jurassic Park sort of scenario). I've been hooked on the series ever since (and absolutely love Agent Pendergast)!
    • 4/5
      Creepy and scary. Love when creatures go bad type stories.
    • 5/5
      Genuinely frightening.
    • 4/5
      There's a lot to love about this even blend of techno-thriller and sci-fi horror, including an exhilarating final act and the introduction of a certain, magnetic, Southern FBI agent.
    • 5/5
      Preston and Child would have to rank as two of my favourite authors. How can you go past characters like Pendergast and D'Agosta?

      I'm going to gradually make my way through the Pendergast series over the coming months, having bought most of them. The only uncertainty is whether or not I'll re-read Cemetery Dance and Still Life With Crows.
    • 5/5
      The story takes place in the New York Museum of Natural History. The Museum has seen declining numbers in recent years and is in need of new funds. The people in charge decide to open a major exhibit entitled "Superstition" to build public interest and support. Days before the exhibit opens a brutal murder is committed. The body has been mutilated in a very peculiar way that suggests the killer isn't human. Leading the police investigation is Lt. Vincent D'Agosta. D'Agosta wants to shut the museum down, but his superiors and museum officials oppose the idea. Instead things proceed as though nothing is wrong until another murder occurs. Some wish the exhibit to be closed until the killer is captured, but museum officials continue to push to allow the exhibit to open as planned. A special FBI agent from out of state, Pendergast, arrives on the scene and begins working with museum researcher Margo Green and Lt. D'Agosta in an attempt to uncover the real killer and decipher what their motive is.

      "The Relic" was the first novel by Preston and Child and they use it to introduce one of the more fascinating characters I have ever encountered,, Aloysius X. L. Pendergast, a modern-day American version of Sherlock Holmes. I found the character of Pendergast to be fascinating. And the monster? Well you only need one good monster to sell a story and this book has a great one.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed the story. It was very suspenseful and atmospheric. I guess I should have just read this one though, instead of listening to the audio. It lost some points for the echo chambers and voice effects. They are very annoying.
    • 4/5
      This was my introduction to Agent Pendergast and I haven't stopped reading about him yet. With a unique storyline, authors Preston & Child created a character who just keeps growing with each book. Very enjoyable.Note: This review is done many years after my reading the book so have only a remembrance of some book details...and the knowledge that I liked it enough to continue with the series.
    • 5/5
      One of the few thrillers I have enjoyed both on the page and on the screen.
    • 4/5
      A great audio book and story. The narration, sound effects, made this chilling action-packed tale a truly entertaining listen. I want to be set free to explore the sub-basement of the New York Natural History Museum. (Now that the creature is gone, of course). Looking forward to continuing this series (as soon as Audible comes back with it, not sure where it went since I purchased the first one from there). Pendergast was quite an interesting character. And with the ending left as it was, I can't just leave it there.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book to death. The characters, the story line, the twists and turns. I loved it. I have continued to read further into this series and they have become my guilty little pleasure books, they end up being fun and quick reads for me and they never fail to disappoint me with some new twist or turn. This series is full of surprises.
    • 5/5
      First by the pair and one of the best
    • 4/5
      "My dear girl, there are more things in heaven and earth, as Hamlet pointed out. It isn't always for us to speculate. Sometimes we must simply observe."
      -Dr. Frock
      This is one scary, creepy monster story. The New York Museum of Natural History is getting ready to unveil the Superstition exhibition and with the recent killings, the staff are all on edge. The police & FBI are looking for a serial killer, but Margo (a graduate student) and Dr. Frock (her adviser) have found signs that the killer may not actually be human.

      So, I have been trying to catch up on reading the ebooks that have been sitting on my kindle for months. This was one of them. I originally bought it because I read other books by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child that I really enjoyed. But I was so caught up in the world of Young Adult series that I forgot about some of the adult books I had.

      This book had me up several nights until the wee hours of the morning. I was very anxious to see what would happen; who would live and who would die. What would D'Agosta (the hard boiled NYPD officer) and Pendergast (the composed FBI agent) do when they finally realized what was actually behind all the killings? And how were the administrators of the museum involved in this whole mess?

      I was a bit disappointed by the ending. It ended too fast for me. I'm not sure how it could be done better. Maybe it couldn't. But I guess after all the suspense and build up, I was looking for a more satisfying ending. Overall, I found this book thrilling and scary and creepy. It was great.

      Recommended to:
      Anyone who enjoys creepy horror thrillers with monsters.
    • 4/5
      Very good for what it is, which a fantasy-horror-thriller.
    • 5/5
      First book in the series.
      Great writing, a little to detailed about things that didn’t really add to the story. Very likable main character, and interesting story.
    • 4/5
      This was an exciting one to fall into. Proper fright, with many twists I didn't see coming. The suspense throughout the whole book had my heart pumping. The ending has me hooked and wanting to continue on with the series.
    • 4/5
      Fun. I'm not sure I'm entirely a fan of the supernatural predator sub-genre of crime, but it mostly worked quite well. It's a quite choppy jumping between a few characters with (my least favourite writing style) a few random short cut-aways to other peopleTBC
    • 4/5
      Good suspense/thriller with a solution that I did not expect. The cover blurb mentions Jurassic Park and I think Crichton is a good comparison. Well written, strong characters-looking forward to the next in the series.
    • 4/5
      I was in the mood for some monster mayhem, and THE RELIC has long been a favorite movie, so I finally got round to the original book, and I'm glad I did.

      It's a fine example of the genre and reads a bit like an extended monster-of-the-week episode of the X-Files, with some added gore and thrills. The claustrophobic nature of the museum at night is a great venue for the jump scares and the monster itself is well realized, and suitably nasty in its habits.

      There's an unfortunate sag in the middle 'what are we dealing with here' section, with too many talking heads and point of view characters - the movie did away with that by dropping some characters all together and merging others into each other. But it's a minor quibble in what is a great creature feature that rattles along nicely apart from that.

      The prose is direct and straightforward, there's little character development, but really, that's not the point of a tale such as this. You're in a museum, at night, locked in with a ravenous beast that will eat your brain. At such times, it's not literary quality that you're thinking about.
    • 4/5
      “Every sixty to seventy million years or so, life starts getting very well adapted to its environment. Too well adapted, perhaps. There is a population explosion of the successful life forms. Then, suddenly, a new species appears out of the blue. It is almost always a predatory creature, a killing machine. It tears through the host population, killing, feeding, multiplying. Slowly at first, then ever faster.” “Relic” was a fast and easy read: New York City’s Natural History Museum has already had its share of dark rumours about a “Museum Beast” when two kids are found brutally murdered in the basement of the museum. And further deaths follow... Thus, Lieutenant D’Agosta from the local Police department takes the lead in the investigation, closely followed by FBI agent Pendergast from New Orleans who knows the killer’s modus operandi from a previous case. Furthermore, there are Margo Green, a graduate student, preparing her dissertation, supported in both that and her independent investigation by Professor Frock, her wheelchair-bound mentor who is part of the higher echelon of the museum. Soon, all of them will find out that sometimes the hunters turn into the hunted quickly... So, why read this? Simple: After a long streak of taxing reads, I wanted something simple, something easy and satisfying and, depending on the kind of “easy” I want, this could be a murder mystery who-dun-it or, as I this instance, a fast-paced thriller. In a thriller I'm looking for... - Thrills (obviously!) – check! - Suspense – check! - Surprise (as I knew the 1997 film, there was less of it than I would have liked but:) – check! - Excitement – check! - Anticipation – check! - Anxiety – check! … and I got it all. Especially the flight through the basement and subbasement of the museum was farily great and I certainly didn’t expect the ending which differs somewhat from the film. Thus, if you’re looking for an easy read with a lot of thrills, just grab a copy of “Relic”, turn the lights low and get reading!
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book and was surprised by how good the book really is. I loved how detailed the authors are with some of the science but they keep it easy to understand. Even though some of the technical information sounds quite dated it helps give a true sense of how dependent on technology we can be. The books also does a good job of rounding out all the side clues and stories and bringing them all together for the conclusion.

      The authors also did an excellent job of giving you a sense of being isolated in the museum. A character could be in one of the busiest museums in the world but still find themselves lost in its cavernous size and the authors really put this to go use in the book. There are plenty of creepy segments and the tension is built up very well and there are plenty of times in the story where the anticipation of what is about to happen is almost as nerve-racking as the actual event.

      This book is so full of characters it was hard to keep some of them separate and to remember which timeframe they were involved in. The narrator was a huge help with his vocal abilities. There is a lot of time spent on several characters that I didn’t feel was needed and it made some parts of the story drag a little.

      The narrator David Colacci did an excellent job with having to develop so many characters. I was never confused about who was speaking and he gave the main characters’ voices that truly fit their described personalities. Not an issue with the narrator but I did not enjoy how the book handled the sounds of characters in tunnels, on the radio or phone – the echo sound effect was quite annoying and unneeded.
    • 5/5
      Fast, gripping page turner. I read through this in two days. A cross between X-Files and Indiana Jones, taking place within the staid walls of New York Museum of Natural History, where a deadly secret lurks. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Re-read for the second time. I had forgotten how much action there was in this book as I hadn't read it since its first publication in 1995, when I was introduced to Agent Pendergast.

      The first part of the book starts out a little slow as it provides the back drop for the story and then the last half of the story the action begins.

      What better way to spend the day at a museum without a care in the world until you find out there is a creature loose in the place and no one knows where it could be or where it could strike next. This is no ordinary creature either as it is very intelligent and even has the capability to open doors. It also likes humans, but not to get friendly with them, but to add them to its snack list.

      The book has suspense, mystery, horror, and a little gore thrown in for good measure!

      I am still giving the book five stars like I did before and I will be continuing the series.
    • 4/5
      This one is a re-read for me. I read the book right after the movie came out because I loved the film so much. I found Chuck Palahniuk and Thomas Harris the same way. Fight Club and Silence of the Lambs were both movies I had no idea were originally books. As with most film adaptations, the books were much better. Which brings me to Relic. Not only is the book better than the movie, but it makes the movie look stupid by comparison.

      Note: I still LOVE the movie, so I don't say that lightly.)

      What Relic does well is blending the impossible with the possible. Though I'm a layman, Preston and Child come off as if they know what they're doing. They suspended my disbelief with an adept hand. If they made it all up, cool beans. At least it sounded plausible. And please don't comment about how far-fetched the monster or story is. I'm simply saying, I believed in the fiction enough that I could enjoy the story.

      The review blurb on the front of the book states: "Far above Crichton's Jurassic Park." To me, this is truth, but only because of my literary tastes. Jurassic Park was another movie I watched before seeking out the book. I disliked Crichton's novel,though, feeling the movie was much better. Don't get your knickers twisted, as this is simply my own subjective opinion. Honestly, I probably liked Relic more because of the horror elements, which were handled very well, leaving a great deal to the imagination.

      What I respect the most about Relic is the ending. Preston and Child manage to maintain tension for well over a hundred pages. I breezed through this book, as every chapter-ending left me wanting to move on. In fact, I think this is the quickest I've ever read a book of this length - 468 pages in only four days. I'm a slow reader. Don't judge me. :P

      I'm reading the sequel, Reliquary, next. I will review when I'm done.

      E.

      (P.S. I forgot to explain why I gave it four stars. The writing is very matter-of-fact and often repetitious, sometimes even banal. Preston and Child have certain words and phrases they love, and you can tell. Oh, and another very minor thing that bothered was that everyone in the book not only had a fondness for saying "Chrissakes," but they also all said it the exact same way. The story, though, makes up a great deal for all the little things I didn't like.)
    • 4/5
      Relic is the first in a lengthy series of thrillers by Preston and Child, and quite the chilling read it is! It was first published in 1995, and as you see on the cover, at least one reviewer found it far superior to Jurassic Park!It does feature a unique creature, as elusive as it is powerful and deadly, but it is not living out in the open; it is at home in the Natural History Museum in New York City, where it has apparently roamed the sub basements for years. Recently, however, it has developed a taste for the brains of human beings, and has begun to make it's presence known.Reports of the murders attributed to a serial killer draw the attention of the renowned FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast, who is assigned to the New Orleans office. The grisly museum murders remind him of a case he worked which went unresolved several years prior and he makes his way to New York to work with NYPD to resolve the case. Pendergast is an agent with superior skills and analytical abilities reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes.The museum directors are much more focused on an exhibit which is scheduled to open very soon, and do not welcome the intrusion of the police, the FBI, and the unwelcome rumors of a museum monster. The exhibit is called Superstition and features fetishes, totems and sacrificial devices used by remote tribes in remote rain forests in pagan worship. In fact, it seems like the disturbance of some of the crates containing some of these fetishes which have been stored at the museum for several years coincides rather dramatically with the sightings of the mysterious creature.But while the Museum Directors are intent on opening the show to recoup economically what they have already spent, one of the grad students who works at the museum is becoming more and more certain that the museum should absolutely not host so many people when their safety can definitely not be assured. 0This book also introduces Lt. Vincent D'Agosta of the NYPD who works closely with Pendergast, and Margo Green is the intrepid young graduate assistant who is instrumental in solving the case, using up-to-the minute genetic technology to zero in on just what kind of creature they are dealing with. Exciting to the very end...and then the epilogue compels you to check out Reliquary, the second in this exciting series.
    • 2/5
      The book was nowhere as good as the synopsis made me believe. However...it's a series and I've purchased many of the books...so here is hoping it gets better!
    • 4/5
      I was suprised that I would enjoy this book. I saw the movie but didn't not remember much of it. This is the first Pendagast novel of the series. Well written, he wasn't shy describing every detail of the people who died. Suspensful, great read. 4/5
    • 3/5
      Not nearly as funny as their later Cabinet of Curiosities.
      Also set in the Natural History Museum. An evil idol brought back by anthropologists from the Brazilian rainforest seems to have spawned a dinosaur-man serial killer who's loose in the unmapped subbasements...
      A pretty standard, entertaining horror/thriller.
    • 4/5
      3.5

      This book is a very fast and entertaining read. Apart for occasionally too detailed depictions of characters' actions, it is more than a good way to have fun.

      The whole series is named after a character who doesn't have a leading role in this story. Pendergast is neither a central nor minor character here. There isn't a character you could say he or she is a major character in the novel. Aloysius Pendergast and Margo Green and to a lesser degree NYPD Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta, Dr. Frock and a journalist William Smithback are the ones who each in their own way help to find the truth behind the present killings and museum's past. Still, even though Pendergast isn't as prominent here as I would like, I am glad it's his series. I want to read more about him since you get only crumbs and teasers here (his past, his wife and so on).

      The lack of romance worked so well here. I like that Margo Green is written as a ordinary woman, someone who is neither weak nor some kick-ass heroine. Margo could be anyone. She is completely normal, she can't really keep a secret, she gets scared. Pendergast and Margo do end up together fighting for their lives, but that's it. If anything romantic happens in later books, it doesn't matter.

      I like that Smithback is a real character, not some caricature of a journalist only after a story. He does want it, but not at any cost. The Mayor is another character who is not presented as your usual politician.
      The red tape, bureaucrats and too ambitious agents form a antagonistic knot the main characters have to entangle to get to the truth. They are a bit one-dimensional, but since the story itself is really good, it doesn't ruin it.

      The reason this book is labelled horror among other things is well written and the explanation for the killings and the origin of a strange figurine are not unbelievable. It touches the ordinary things and science just close enough to make a great story.

      While the book doesn't end in cliffhanger, its epilogue leaves an opening of bad things to come.