Relic: The First Novel in the Pendergast Series

by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

Overview

From bestselling authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child comes Relic, the novel 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?

“Sit back, crack open the book, and get ready for the ride of your life.” —David Baldacci

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250335265
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/23/2024
Series:	Pendergast Series
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

DOUGLAS PRESTON has published over forty books of both nonfiction and fiction, of which more than thirty have been New York Times bestsellers, a half-dozen reaching the #1 position. He is the co-author, with Lincoln Child, of the Pendergast series of thrillers. He also writes nonfiction pieces for the New Yorker. He worked as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University. He is president emeritus of the Authors Guild and serves on the Advisory Board of the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe.

Lincoln Child is the author of Utopia and Death Match, as well as a number of New York Times bestselling thrillers with Douglas Preston. He lives with his wife and daughter in Morristown, New Jersey.

Place of Birth:

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Education:

B.A., Pomona College, 1978

Website:

http://www.prestonchild.com

Editorial Reviews

Far above Crichton's Jurassic Park.” —Booklist on Relic

“What might happen if a creature from Jurassic Park came to New York City.” —The Chicago Tribune on Relic

“Wildly cool...Thrill hounds couldn't ask for a creepier environment...a thriller staged in the world's scariest building, with no room for the squeamish.” —Kirkus Reviews on Relic

“Jaws takes Manhattan.” —San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle on Relic

“A thriller that arrives with the kinetic energy of a meteor smacking the earth. ” —Tampa Tribune and Times on Relic

“A high-concept, high-energy thriller . . . Builds to a superbly exciting climax, and then offers a final twist to boot.” —Publishers Weekly on Relic

From the Publisher

The Barnes & Noble Review
I worked with these guys at Tor/Forge. Great guys, excellent novelists. In this one there's a horrific beast chomping up mayhem in New York City's Museum of Natural History. Spooky beyond belief, Preston and Child take you deep within the museum's dark, labyrinthine bowels for one extraordinary, page-turning ride. The sequel, Reliquary, is also excellent. Probably one of the best sequels I've ever read. It almost -- almost -- tops The Relic.

--Andrew LeCount

bn.com editor

A monster on the loose in New York City's American Museum of Natural History provides the hook for this high-concept, high-energy thriller. A statue of the mad god Mbwun, a monstrous mix of man and reptile, was discovered by a Museum expedition to South America in 1987. Now, it is about to become part of the new Superstition Exhibition at the museum (here renamed the ``New York Museum of Natural History''). But as the exhibition's opening night approaches, the museum may have to be shut down due to a series of savage murders that seem to be the work of a maniac-or a living version of Mbwun. When the museum's director pulls strings to ensure that the gala affair takes place, it's up to a small band of believers, led by graduate student Margo Green, her controversial adviser and an FBI agent who investigated similar killings in New Orleans, to stop the monster-if the culprit is indeed a monster-from going on a rampage. Less horror then action-adventure, the narrative builds to a superbly exciting climax, and then offers a final twist to boot. With its close-up view of museum life and politics, plausible scientific background, sharply drawn characters and a plot line that's blissfully free of gratuitous romance, this well-crafted novel offers first-rate thrills and chills. Film rights optioned by Kennedy-Marshall Productions; audio rights to Brilliance Corp. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

One suspects that Child, who has edited numerous ghost and horror anthologies (e.g., Dark Company, St. Martin's, 1984), read Dinosaurs in the Attic (LJ 10/15/86), Preston's wonderful history of the American Museum of Natural History, and decided the pair should collaborate on a horror novel in this wonderfully spooky setting. The heroes (an FBI agent and a journalist) and heroine (a spunky graduate student) wander through basements, sub-basements, and tunnels, searching for the savagely murderous predator inadvertently sent to the museum from the Amazon. Despite the headless bodies turning up all over, the museum director is determined to proceed with the lucrative opening ceremony for the new "Superstition" exhibit. Then the monster gets loose among New York's rich and powerful. This is a real page-turner, part Jaws, part Poseidon Adventure. Essential for horror collections.-Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, Ia.

Library Journal

YA-This electrifying thriller opens in an unexplored, mysterious corner of the Amazon basin. A Museum of Natural History expedition is seeking the legendary Kothoga tribe in quest of the vile secret it conceals. The thoroughly terrified tribes nearby infer that the Kothoga and their malicious ways are too awful to discuss with outsiders, except to issue dire warnings. The expedition dissolves, with most of its members opting out of the territory with alacrity, only to perish in a plane crash. Two zealous individuals who heedlessly press on into the jungle vanish, but not before making the horrifying discovery they sought. The crates of the lost expedition, however, arrive back in New York City intact, and are consigned to the basement for cataloging. The story picks up back at the museum where murders have begun to occur with dreadful frequency. Forensics reveal the death blows were delivered with unusual strength, the corpses were dismembered with savage violence, and the perpetrator has mighty unusual DNA patterns. The NYPD, the FBI, and enterprising museum research assistants join efforts to solve the grisly murders but are stonewalled by officials in the head office who plan a revenue-generating exhibition of Amazonian artifacts, recklessly ignoring the impending danger to staff and visitors alike. While the story line contains a bit too much of museum politics and logistics that don't quite mesh, the suspense is sure to please fans of Michael Crichton and Stephen King.-Catherine Noonan, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

School Library Journal

"Jaws takes Manhattan."

Examiner & Chronicle San Francisco

"Want to pick up a thriller that arrives with the kinetic energy of a meteor smacking the Earth? Read The Relic[for] some of the most riverting passages ever contained between two covers."

The Tampa Tribune

"Better than anything the theoretically recombiant team of Michael Crichton and Peter Benchley could ever hope to achieve."

Albuquerque Journal

"What might happen if a creature from 'Jurassic Park' came to New York City.

Chicago Tribune

"The Relic is a straight thriller. That's like saying, however, that Die Hard was just another action adventure flick or that Gone With the Wind was just another Civil War film. Each stands as a superlative example of its type."

Orlando Sentinel