Book Review – Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child’s “Reliquary”
Back in 1995, authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child presented the literary world with Relic, a thrilling story that placed a killer creature in the depths of the prestigious New York Museum of Natural History.
The sinister Museum Beast killed over forty people and wounded twice that many during a short span inside the museum. Relic introduced us to Margo Green, a graduate student who worked in the anthropology department; William “Bill” Smithback, Jr., a nosy newspaper reporter; Special Agent Pendergast of the FBI; NYPD Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta; and Dr. Frock, Margo’s advisor and director of that part of the museum.
As we know, those characters survived their horrific encounter of the Museum Beast. The beast is ultimately killed at the end of Relic, but information at the end of the story leads us to believe that there’s still much more to the origins of the creature and its impact on the city of New York.
Reliquary begins several years after the events of Relic. By now Margo Green has earned her doctorate degree and continues working with the Museum. Dr. Frock has since retired, and Pendergast, Smithback and D’Agosta continue working for their respective employers.
The story begins as NYPD officer Snow is making his first dive as a new diver for the NYPD. Lieutenant D’Agosta is on the boat when Snow and two other policemen dive into the murky waters in search of a stash of cocaine that was tossed into the water after a recent police chase. Instead of finding the drugs, the rookie diver stumbles upon two human skeletons, both of them missing their skulls. The skeletons are hauled on board the boats and later taken to the morgue for further analysis.
At the morgue, personal item on one of the skeletons identifies the remains as those belonging to Pamela Wisher, a young lady who recently disappeared. Bill Smithback caught wind of the story about the young socialite’s remains being found in sewage, and his newspaper article caught the attention of Pamela’s mother, Anette Wisher. She agrees to meet with Smithback and give him information as long as he prints more honest stories about her daughter, shying away from her night life and focusing on her schooling and numerous accounts of good deeds. Smithback agrees and Mrs. Wisher informs him of her plan of creating flash mobs and putting pressure on the police department to help clean up the city.
Meanwhile, the doctor at the morgue notices strange markings on both of the skeleton remains, and Lieutenant D’Agosta sends the skeletons to the New York Museum of Natural History for further analysis. He requests that Dr. Margo Green be part of the scientists analyzing the bones.
Sure enough, there are strange markings on the bones. They almost look like puncture wounds, but further testing needs to take place before a final decision can be made. Smithback tries to push Margo for more information, especially when the markings on the remains and missing heads sounds more and more like the Museum Beast’s method of killing. But the Mbwun was killed years ago and its remains were destroyed.
Bill agrees to sit on the story and wait for the Museum’s official decision, but a rival news reporter somehow hears the rumors and runs with the story. It’s front page news and the citizens of New York City are fearing the return of the Museum Beast. Instead of roaming the halls and basement of the massive museum, this time the Beast is allegedly underneath their feet in the vast sewer system of New York City and Central Park.
At one point Bill Smithback is captured by what seems to be a homeless man. The man takes the reporter deep underground to an underground colony of people led by a man named Mephisto. Despite living several stories underground, Mephisto had read Smithback’s recent articles about the mysterious killings and had one of his men bring the reporter into his underground lair. Mephisto warns Smithback that an unknown group of people (known as “Wrinklers”) have recently begun attacking Mephisto’s people. The Wrinklers live even deeper underground and are relentless with their attacks. Part of their trademark involves decapitating their victims.
Bill takes the information back to Lieutenant D’Agosta, who basically shrugs it off as an unnecessary task. Homeless people died every day in the city. Why should anybody care about a group of people who choose to live deep underground?
D’Agosta’s attitude changes when he meets Sergeant Laura Hayward. It turns out that she used to work as a rouster for the Transportation Authority, and she has a great deal of knowledge about the homeless organizations that live underneath New York City. She’s studying for her Masters degree and has published several articles involving the structure and organization about the homeless society. Hayward convinces D’Agosta that there’s more to the story with the underground killings. D’Agosta takes the information back to Hayward’s boss, Captain Jack Waxie, a useless but superior officer who takes credit for other’s hard work and shows his cowardice in the face of danger.
D’Agosta, Hayward and Waxie go underground for a brief reconnaissance, and down there they’re attacked by a gang of homeless people. It turns out that the underground societies don’t care much for law enforcement. Back at the police station, Special Agent Pendergast arrives disguised as a homeless man. He makes his way into D’Agosta’s office before revealing his identification. D’Agosta is glad to see his friend and brings him up to speed concerning the skeletons and underground killings.
The investigation above ground also continues and D’Agosta investigates a structure that was once owned by museum researcher Greg Kawakita. He brings along Dr. Green and she identifies the remains of specialized equipment along with part of Kawakita’s research papers. Kawakita, however, is nowhere to be found.
Dr. Green later receives a phone call from a neurologist who analyzed the second of the unknown skeletons. The doctor reveals that the skeleton was a rare case that he himself operated on years ago. It belonged to Greg Kawakita. Dr. Green and Dr. Frock are saddened by the news of the death of their fellow museum worker. Regardless, Dr. Green continues with her investigation about the equipment in Kawakita’s burned laboratory and what he was doing in his final days.
The story continues and it turns out that the Wrinkler creatures show alarming signs of being close to the Mbwun, the Museum Beast. Only this time instead of one creature killing people it’s an unknown number of them deep underground. At one point Pengergast and D’Agosta travel underground and Pendergast is posed as the leader of another gang and meet with Mephisto. There he learns more about the mysterious killings and what structures lie even deeper underground.
An area nicknamed the Devil’s Attic was actually constructed back at the turn of the century by a small group of very wealthy individuals. These people wanted a private underground rail line that connected downtown New York with the outer suburbs, and the only way to make that happen and stay clear of the underground obstacles was to make the tunnels very deep. The tunnels and stations were built, but the trains stopped operating after a year or two of operations. The stations and tunnels were sealed, and eventually sewage filled the underground chambers several times over throughout the next eighty to ninety years. When underground explorers finally found the forgotten stations and their extremely grimy furniture, the area was nicknamed the Devil’s Attic.
It’s determined that the creatures are living in the Devil’s Attic. Pendergast is able to go on a solo reconnaissance mission and map out the structure that lies deep under Central Park. He succeeds although it nearly costs him his life.
Meanwhile, Dr. Green determines that Greg Kawakita was continuing his genetics research concerning the Mbwun creature and the special plants that were the Museum Beast’s diet. It’s determined that Kawakita somehow cracked the code and was able to alter the special virus to benefit himself by prolonging his life. Unfortunately, this had a side effect that also drove his mind to total madness. Kawakita had been selling his special drug to underground homeless people, and it’s believed that the drug’s side effects caused them to transform into lizard-like creatures and go insane, killing people. Kawakita must have been killed when his customers learned about the dark side of the drug and decided to kill him.
While this is taking place, the public is becoming more and more enraged with the police department and their apparent lack of handling the crime problems in New York City. An express subway train was recently attacked by unknown creatures, and all but one of the riders were brutally massacred in a bloodbath. Mrs. Wisher continues to lead mobs of people in demonstrations, and each gathering has more and more supporters. The mayor and governor of New York feel the pressure, and they put even more pressure on Captain Wixie to solve the problem of killers living underneath New York City.
The best plan (created by Dr. Frock) is to use the Central Park reservoir to flood the lower levels of the tunnels and kill the killer creatures. This is accepted by the police department and it’s put in motion. D’Agosta, Dr. Green and Pendergast continue with researching the area and discover that the reservoir is filled with the plants that the Mbwun used for feeding, plants that were thought to have become extinct. The problem is that Greg Kawakita modified the plants to survive in temperate climates, and the plants are ready to spread their seeds. If the reservoir is flooded and the plants are ultimately washed into the river and then the Atlantic Ocean, then the seeds would be spread and the special virus inside of them would create a devastating effect in the whole food change, causing mutations and unimaginable damage for future generations.
The problem is that there’s no way to stop the flooding of the tunnels. The software in control of everything does not allow for last minute changes. A new plan is formed and several teams, including one with Pendergast, D’Agosta, Mephisto and Dr. Green, head underground to plant demolitions and seal the underground tunnels.
Dr. Green had finished her study of Kawakita’s work and made some discoveries. She noticed that sunlight had a devastating effect on creatures infected with his virus. She also noticed that it appeared that Greg knew that the virus was incurable, and that he was apparently trying to find a way to destroy the creatures when he himself was killed. Dr. Green crushes a high number of Vitamin D pills and mixes the powder with water, creating a weapon to use against the Wrinkler creatures.
They travel underground and Mephisto leads them directly to the Devil’s Attic. They’re ambushed by the creatures and a massive battle takes place. The battle ends with them being captured and not killed like everybody else who stumbled into their path. They’re taken to a shrine constructed out of human skulls, and the leader of the Wrinklers turns out to be Dr. Frock himself. And, surprise, surprise, Dr. Frock no longer needs his wheelchair. He reveals that the Greg used the virus too early, and the virus’s true power lied with its ability to not only prolong human life but to also cure defects, such as Frock’s polio. It’s revealed that Dr. Frock arranged to have Greg killed by the Wrinklers.
Dr. Frock is about to have the prisoners killed in a ritual when there’s a distraction and they escape. Mephisto kills Dr. Frock and a bunch of creatures with a mine, and Pendergast, D’Agosta, Dr. Green and Smithback (he joined the party after following Captain Wixie go underground, get slaughtered by the creatures, and then run around blindly until stumbling into Pendergast’s group). Dr. Green uses her Vitamin D water to kill several of the Wrinklers and stop them from pursuing them back to the surface.
The gang barely escapes as the underground explosions detonate and collapse parts of the tunnels, sealing the area known as the Devil’s Attic. All of the Wrinklers are killed and Pendergast’s gang survives their ordeal.
Reliquary ends with Pendergast, D’Agosta, Dr. Green and Smithback reuniting for a meal a year later. So far nothing has stirred underground, and there aren’t any traces of the deadly plant seeds in the rivers or oceans. All seems well.
So is Reliquary a good book?
First of all, Reliquary is a direct sequel that heavily involves the characters and events established in Relic. If you haven’t read Relic you’ll be completely lost when it comes to Reliquary. I was a little bit hazy with some details from Relic, and I just read that book about seven months ago.
While Relic offered a fascinating look at the New York Museum of Natural History along with a horrific creature stalking its hallways, Reliquary takes a moderately interesting look at the underground society of New York City. While this wasn’t as interesting to me as the Museum, the underground world was still an interesting setting especially with it lying right under the feet of the city’s citizens.
As far as the story, it was interesting but not as good as Relic. Reliquary dives deeper into the conspiracy involving the Mbwun and its mysterious virus, and this time around we have an army of killer creatures that easily kill everyday citizens along with the military’s super soldiers. To me it felt like the Navy SEALs had corny dialogue and were killed way too easily by the Wrinklers. It stands to reason that they would have had a better chance than they did in this story.
It’s hinted that the underground society is much more advanced and “civilized” than what people assume, but apart from small clues here and there we really don’t see much evidence of this in the book. It would have been great if some of that culture could have been more elaborate, especially when we’re supposed to feel sorry as the underground homeless people later battle the mobs of New Yorkers near the end of the story.
Despite that, Reliquary is still a decent story and good continuation from the events in Relic. This has the same high quality level of writing that you would expect from Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and the characters are quite entertaining. The predecessor though is a far superior story.
