Relic by Preston & Child

I just finished Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child about an hour ago. I hate the cliche of describing something as a ‘page-turner’ but sometimes it really does apply.

First, a synopsis:

Some anthropologist and explorer types are in the Amazon rainforest in the middle of nowhere. They find a relic in a hut that is a carving of a horrible monster/beast thing. As is traditional in such scenarios, they nick it and send it back to the New York Museum of Natural History. They then disappear or die.

Later, the museum is going to host a major new exhibition about Superstition and the relic is going to be a highlight. But then, a few days before the opening, there are a serious of gruesome murders. People are disappearing or being literally ripped apart and having their brains eaten.

Something is loose in the museum.

An FBI guy called Pendergast is called in and is actually a pretty cool character. (Which is a good thing because there is now an entire series based on him.) As the new exhibition nears, things get tremendously exciting and bloody.

I really enjoyed Relic and as I often do when I find a new series, I immediately bought the next one. I should warn you that it isn’t the deepest or most powerful bit of literature out there but given that it’s about a monster loose in a museum, you probably won’t be expecting that. What you should expect, is an exciting and fun thriller. Which Relic definitely is.

Recently, I have read a lot of James Rollins (you can read a review here) and this kind of reminds me of his work but without the exotic locales. I have been at the beach a lot and these sorts of ‘pushing the science’ type of thrillers are the perfect holiday reads.

You can buy Relic by Preston & Child here. If you think you might like an exciting book about a monster in a huge museum tearing random people limb from limb while an eclectic cast tries to track it down, then you’ll like this book. And who doesn’t like such things?

I saw the film based on the book (Wikipedia link) but didn’t let that put me off. The book is, predictably, better. Recommended.