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Online Store - Relic (Pendergast, Book 1)
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List Price: $7.99
Our Price: $7.99
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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Tor Books
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780812543261
ISBN: 0812543262
Label: Tor Books
Manufacturer: Tor Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 480
Publication Date: 1996-01-15
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: 2003-12-30
Studio: Tor Books
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Editorial Reviews:
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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?
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Reader, Meet Pendergast
Comment: This intensely exciting thriller is the beginning of Preston's and Child's series featuring FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast, the tall, ghostly-pale Southern gentleman who is half MacGyver half Oxford professor. Pendergast is one of the best characters I've ever read, and certainly the best law enforcement character. And I certainly wasn't disappointed in the other characters either, especially the sardonic New York cop, Vincent D'Agosta and the tenacious grad student, Margo Green, who join Pendergast in his search for the truth. The premise of the book is not only breathtakingly frightening, but also breathtakingly believable. I gladly return to this book again and again, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the authors' continuation of these characters in the rest of the series.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Monster Book with a twisting plot
Comment: Relic is a good book. Almost all of the book takes place in the Museum of Natural History in New York. There are many characters that the story follows. The most important character is Margo, a student that is working toward her PhD at the Museum. She is working under a senior scientist at the Museum named Frock.
When two children show up at the Museum dead an investigation is started to find out about the death of the children. Because of the strange nature of the murders an investigator from New Orleans named Pentergast comes to assist in the investigation. There were a number of similar unsolved deaths that were similar in New Orleans.
The death of the children are soon followed by more deaths. The string of deaths come at a very bad time for the museum. They are opening a new exhibit that for them is important to have it opened on time. The financial future of the museum is relying on the opening of the exhibit.
Despite all of the deaths, the museum still opens the exhibit. This is soon followed by a stampede as a new murder is discovered in the exhibit the night of its opening. Upon the discovery of the body the guests of the party stampede out of the museum killing several people in the process.
At the same time as the stampede there is a massive failure of the museum's security system that locks several of the guests in the museum with the beast that is responsible for all of the deaths.
I will not tell the end of the book just to say that it is a very fast paced book. There are a lot of characters, each of which has there own small stories. The problem with having so many characters is that the book jumps from character to character and little chunk of the story plot to another little chunk of the story plot. This is a little annoying but it is not so bad that the book is not completely unreadable. In fact it is nice to know about each story and the characters involved. Some of the stories only tie together at the end. There is also a really good surprise ending that is not even hinted at in the rest of the book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: First in a great series.
Comment: "Relic" is the first step on a fantastical and intellectually-stimulating literary journey that is the Agent Pendergrast series. Where else can you find bloodthirsty monsters and fiendish murderers on the same pages that discuss the finer points of Alkan's Grande Sonatine and Beethoven's String Quartets? You also get treated to an incomparable guided historical tour of Manhattan's Museum of Natural History, which is grounded in Mr. Preston's well-researched non-fiction book on the museum, "Dinosaurs in the Attic."
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pendergast's "The Relic"
Comment: For lovers of horror stories with a well-developed story line and plenty of mystery, this is an excellent read. I especially like the author's vivid descriptions of gruesome details (the evacuated cranium of a victim) but also the elaborate intertwining of ancient history, modern science, and mysticism. I will never forget the images the author painted of police wading in the monster's lair, the sewers beneath the museum, and describing the strong odor of goat's breath as a harbinger of the monster's arrival on scene. I have bought this book as a gift for others because of its excellent story quality.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Taunt, exciting thriller
Comment: After the death of two museum visitors, the museum of Natural History calls in the Police, headed by truculent hard-nosed Lt. D'Agosta, also FBI Agent Pendergast, a quirky and unorthodox investigator from the south. What they discover? They believe a serial killer is on the loose- perhaps intending to derail the museum's new "Superstition" exhibit. What they don't know is something far more sinister lives in the basement of the museum. As the date of the exhibit nears, can the agents and a team of museum scientists get to the bottom of the museum murders before its too late?
I listened to the unabridged audio edition of Relic. The characters were well thought out, the monster interesting and the story exciting. I particularly liked D'Agosta and Dr. Frock. The monster itself was fascinating, and the museum was very cool as the background for this taunt story.
5 stars. Excellent.
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