23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A World Of Terror Awaits Far Beneath NYC's Streets!, July 17, 2005
This review is from: Reliquary (Hardcover)
Members of New York City's Police Scuba Squad discover two headless skeletons, one of which is hideously deformed, in the Humboldt Kill, aka "Cloaca Maxima, named after the great central sewer of ancient Rome" for obvious reasons. NYPD Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta is called in to investigate the who, why, what, where, etc., of the decapitated corpses, and discovers a link between them and a series of murders plaguing the city's underground homeless population. The violent deaths of the anonymous "houseless," the so-called "mole" people, have not been a priority for the powers that be, but when one of the corpses is identified as that of a wealthy socialite, priorities change fast!
The inability to discover the identity, or the species (?), of the unusually malformed skeleton, leads Lt. D'Agosta to enlist the aid of his old friend, anthropologist Margo Green, an assistant curator at the New York Museum of Natural History, and her former professor and mentor, the retired scientist Dr. Frock. FBI Special Agent Prendergast hooks up with the Doctor, the Lieutenant, and the professor, and they are later joined by journalist Bill Smithback. After finding some fascinating new evidence, the team attempts to discover if there is a link between the mole people's brutal murders, the two skeletons found in the Kill, and the Museum Beast incident of the previous year. It is important to note that "Reliquary" is the sequel to "Relic," and though this reads well as a stand-alone novel, it has strong ties to the first book in terms of plot, and characters. Green, D'Agosta, Prendergast, Frock and Smithback all worked together on the Museum Beast case. Enough background information is woven into this storyline so that one need not be familiar with "Relic" to enjoy this book.
The plot and sub-plots take some twists and turns, but everything leads our diverse team of sleuths and experts downward, deep into the dark maze of abandoned subway tunnels and sewers that lie beneath the streets of New York. One of the aspects of "Reliquary" that most intrigues me, is the factual, rather than the fictional. Much of the information included about the world underneath the streets of Manhattan is fact. "It has been estimated that as many as five thousand homeless people have lived in the vast warren of underground tracks, subway tunnels, ancient aqueducts, coal tunnels, waiting rooms, disused gas mains, etc., which riddle underground Manhattan. Grand Station alone sits above seven stories of tunnels." The Author's Note contains more information on this subject.
I don't want to interject spoilers, so suffice it to say that there are some creepy critters hanging out with the regulars below the Big Apple's glittering sidewalks. One of Margo Green's friends and colleagues, a gifted scientist, had been working secretly, on his own, with some of the plant fibers the now dead Museum Monster needed in order to feed. The man came up with much more than he bargained for, and consequently placed not only the population of New York at risk, but the entire ecosystem of our planet...and worse!! Yoiks!
This book starts off with a bang, that is to say, quickly with lots of scariness - which is good. However, the pace slows significantly about halfway through. The concept that "less is more" is seemingly unknown to Misters Preston and Child. I have encountered problems with their tendency to over-write before. Repetitiveness may cause boredom in the reader, and frequent exposure can take the scariness out of monsters. I think "Reliquary" is about 50-75 pages too long. The authors build suspense to a fever pitch, the tension peaks, begins to fall-off, and their point is still not made, nor are the mysteries solved. The lack of a taut narrative, really distracts from the horror and suspense. And, I was/am extremely disappointed in the ending. Not credible at all!! Here I have trekked through the smelly sludge of centuries, thirty stories beneath the city surface, seemingly forever, in order to accompany our protagonists, especially Agent Prendergast, who is superb...for this kind of finale??
If you enjoy Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, then by all means pick-up a copy of "Reliquary." It has its good moments and is entertaining, especially, when exploring the belly of the beast.
JANA
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not as good as Relic, but still a chilling thriller, May 11, 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: Reliquary (Hardcover)
Reliquary grabs you at the start and holds on for dear life until the last 50 or so pages. Please understand the whole book is great, but the ending appeared to be a bit contrived, almost as if the authors were tired and said "Let's just end this thing."
I would recommend this book to anyone who is an adrenalin junkie ( and who isnt really). Not a book to be read at night or while alone. You will hear strange scrambling noises and
smell goatish odors.
Douglas and Childs have not received the recognition they so richly deserve. I know everyone says it, but they did create something to compete with Jurassic Park and then when they wrote this sequal, unlike Crighton and his The Lost World, they did bother to put in time and effort to keep their fans enthralled and scared witless.( Except for the end.) But hey, even with the ending being a bit disappointing the rest of the book is worth the cost of buying this book in hard cover and then after reading it, paying the extra charge on your light bill, because you wont dare turn off the lights for days.
Buy it!!!!! Read it!!!!!! Scream for the movie!!!!
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sometimes there is justice, December 11, 1999
As the sequel to "Relic" this is also fast paced and has information that makes me want even more information, about the underground of New York City, the history of it, and the way it relates to us on the verge of a new millenium. The main characters could be fleshed out more, but they are still more developed than the average "thriller" cast. And most readers will be able to relate to the bureaucratic nonsense and enjoy the justice served to most of the worst offenders. Most of the writing is fast paced and the opening scene is unbelievably graphic, brilliant considering it takes place in total darkness, under water, muck, and sewage of New York water ways. That scene alone left me with a case of claustrophobia. There are characters to love and ones to hate and ones that you only know exist, but have no idea who or what they are until too late. This is a great escape book, you want to use it to escape, but when you've finished you're glad to escape back to the real world as we hope we know it.
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