Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Relic (1995)
Authors: Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Genre (and subgenre): Horror (Contemporary Monster)
Plot Summary:
People begin to show up dead around New York City’s Natural History Museum. Their heads have been cracked open like eggs and parts of the brain eaten. Is it possible that the museum’s legendary beast actually exists? Is the beast related to the new Superstition Exhibit? Seems that certain show pieces are cursed. One exploration team went down to the Amazon and supposedly no one made it back alive. Their findings had been shipped ahead and one relic was priceless, a carving depicting a beast given to a mysterious tribe by the Devil. The heads of the museum do not want to close down before the exhibit’s opening night reception and lose money. FBI agent Pendergast from New Orleans teams up with the NYC police chief: D’Agosta and together they are aided by graduate student Margo Green and writer Bill Smithback to search out the killer/beast. From a claw torn off in a corpse, Margo Green analyzes the DNA, finding that lizard and human genetics are present. Is the killer using a tool or is the killer a monster? There is lots of discussion about errant evolution and super killer species that cause extinction. Margo Green puts an end to the discussion when she snoops around the exhibit at night and accidentally sees the monster and the artifact together, the devil’s monster lives! A security snafu causes the museum doors to lockdown during the exhibit opening, meaning that a horde of influential New Yorkers are trapped in the exhibit with a hungry monster! SPOILER: An Amazon plant infected with a virus is actually the cause of the beast. If a human eats this plant, it slowly affects their genetic makeup, turning them into a beast. Once the human begins changing, there is an addiction to the plant. The area where the plant grew in the Amazon is very tiny and the habitat has been destroyed with the advancing of civilization. If the beast cannot eat the plant, then he craves part of a human/animal brain where a chemical is produced. The monster was actually an explorer who used to work for the museum. After the plants were destroyed, he remembered the boxes of artifacts were wrapped in the infected plant. He traveled to New York and lived in the sub-basement. He ate from the boxes and snacked on stray animals in the flooded basement and NYC sewers. When the artifact boxes were put in a secure area, he went after humans for a bigger chemical rush. Yet a mad scientist gets the genetic printouts that Margo Green produced and from a dried plant sample, figures out how to grow another plant. He begins selling the plant to drug addicts as it gives a better high without immediate aftereffects, though the reader can see that the plant is changing him into a beast, bit by bit.
Important Characters: FBI Agent: Pendergast; Graduate Student working on thesis at museum: Margo Green; Newspaper Reporter/Writing Book about museum: Bill Smithback; Explorer: Whittlesey; Curator of the Exhibit: George Kawakita; Police Chief: D’Agosta
Geographical Setting: New York City: Natural History Museum, Amazon Jungle, and Ports along the way
Time Period: 1987, 1988, and present day
Series: One Sequel: Reliquary; FBI Agent Pendergast and Margo Green are recurring characters in Preston and Child’s books.
Appeal Characteristics:
There are lots of details discussing behind the scenes museum work, specific details of the Natural History Museum: how people work, exhibit set up, layout of the building and history of the building, details of specific artifacts such as dinosaur bones, a short sequence of how to prepare bones of recently deceased animals, and a short walk through the corpse vault of Native American Indians and earlier North American people. For anyone who has worked in a job with coworkers, they will relate to the insider politics among the positions of museum workers and between the NYC police and FBI agents. For the reader, there are lots of sightings of the beast, usually a corpse every third chapter. The authors do not describe the actions of how the beast killed, but the aftermath of the corpses are given in gruesome detail. This gives the book a feeling of whodunit? and how did they do it? This technique aids the reader’s doubts about the possibility of a beast. Until the four main characters agree that there is a beast, the creature lurks in the shadows. While the characters are witnessing many murder scenes and are doing their jobs, they remain humane instead of becoming immune to the carnage. Many professionals (Police, FBI, and academics) get sick or internally attempt to deal with their disgust on witnessing the scenes of brutality. Towards the end, the authors are crafty as they drum up sympathy for the beast, as everyone seems to notice his sad eyes (meaning: I don’t really want to kill you), right before he kills them.
The technology dates this book. (Dot-matrix printer is all I have to say.) So watch out for the savvy tech reader, who may not appreciate the Stone Age in which these people are operating.
Similar Authors: Michael Critchon, Jeff Long’s The Ascent
Red Flags: Explicit details of the murder scenes, death of adults, children, and dogs.
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