Publisher's Weekly Review
The netherworld of New York Cityits subways, aqueducts, sewers and the homeless who inhabit themproves as shuddery a setting for the authors' latest scientific monster mash as the American Museum of Natural History did for their bestselling Relic, to which this is the sequel. In the earlier novel, Mbwun, a ferocious creature that seemed part reptile, part human, rampaged through the museum killing people. The sequel, set 18 months after Mbwun was destroyed, opens with a police diver finding the headless bodies of two people apparently killed by underground cannibals. The corpses are sent to the museum's lab for analysis, which brings a number of returnees from Relicburly homicide cop Vincent D'Agosta, anthropologist Margo Green, New York Post crime reporter Bill Smithbackto the case. They're soon joined by the novels' Sherlock Holmes figure, the irresistibly cool Special Agent Pendergast of the FBI. Forays by these principals into the kingdom of the Mole People (underground homeless), plus some forensic breakthroughs, point to a race of mini-Mbwun at work in an escalating series of savage killings that incite the city's upper crust to civil disobedience. The city's answer, to flood its nether vaults, turns out to threaten a global catastrophe that only Pendergast and company, aided by Navy SEALS, can avert. The story's "surprise" ending makes as much sense as ketchup on popcorn, and the entire novel has a desperate air about it as the authors stuff it with complications and, by pitting the homeless against the swells, try to create a kind of Decapitation of the Vanities. It's high on suspense and tremendous fun in parts, though, especially when exploring the city's nightmare underbelly. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternate selections. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
This should do for the New York subway system what Jaws did for Long Island beaches. Barely has the excitement of the museum killings (related in Preston and Child's recently filmed Relic [1995]) settled down, than Lieutenant D'Agosta of the NYPD is faced with another series of murders. Dr. Margo Green, the odious scribbler Smithback, FBI Agent Pendergast, and others from Relic are gradually drawn to investigate the death of a Manhattan socialite as well as the less newsworthy murders of several "mole people" --the disaffected and alienated who have formed communities in the old subways, sewers, drainage tunnels, and other deep recesses of Manhattan. Some thoroughly repellent, ghoulish types are the murderous culprits, and Preston and Child skillfully play subplots against each other, as the police and their allies attempt to defeat their horrific opponents before catastrophe overwhelms the Apple. Although Reliquary is a sequel, its exposition carries us easily into the new plot and excites interest in seeing what Preston and Child come up with next, after this yarn's all-loose-ends-tied finale. --Dennis Winters
School Library Journal Review
The curator of the Natural History Museum rejoins police and the FBI as they attempt to solve horrific murders. A frightening sequel to The Relic, it's a terrific read on its own. (Sept.) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
The doughty crew that bested Mbwun, a flesh-eating Amazonian creature that stalked its victims through Manhattan's Museum of Natural History, in Relic (1994), faces a new but all too familiar threat. When the skeletal remains of a socially prominent young woman are flushed out of an Upper West Side storm drain, sans skull, NYPD Lieutenant D'Agosta seeks assistance from anthropologist Margo Green and her sometime mentor Dr. Frock. With timely help from a mysterious FBI agent known only as Pendergast, the technocrats eventually put paid to the reptilian Museum Beast that, deprived of its dietary staple (a lily indigenous to Brazil's rainforest), had found human brains an acceptable substitute. Suspecting the past and present cases may be linked, D'Agosta becomes convinced when he learns that the decapitation rate among the underground homeless is on the rise. Pendergast reaches out to the subterranean community, discovering it's being depopulated by brutish beings who dwell in the so-called Devil's Attic, a network of railroad tunnels linking Grand Central Terminal with the suburbs. Meantime, Margo learns that a former colleague has genetically engineered an equivalent of the Mbwun lily (for its narcotic and regenerative properties), which can survive in the Northern Hemisphere. While the unfortunate young man's work went awry, another evil genius took on the project, and monster edibles are growing in the Central Park Reservoir. D'Agosta's panicky superiors decide to exterminate the predatory new mole people (who revere a mad scientist as their messiah) by flooding the Devil's Attic. Once the point of no return is passed, however, Margo determines that the toxic lilies could wash out to sea and do irreparable harm to Earth's food chain. With but hours to go until a wall of water from upstate basins sweeps through the netherworld caverns, then, Pendergast and a band of Navy SEALs must battle their way into the pitch-black abyss to keep the flow contained. Ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night. . . in rerun. (Literary Guild alternate selection; author tour)
Library Journal Review
No one is too concerned about the mysterious remains of anonymous homeless people until middle- and upper-class victims are found headless. Pendergast (FBI), Green (anthropologist), and D'Agosta (NYPD) from The Relic (Brilliance Corp., 1995) join forces to subdue what turns out to be a violent mutant race living underground. While some may like gruesome stories where people eat roasted rats in dark tunnels and monsters decapitate subway riders, this story did not become interesting until the last few cassettes. At this point, reader Dick Hill's pacing adds urgency and captures the listener's attention during a last-ditch effort to save not just the city but civilization as we know it. A straight reading might be more efficacious than dramatic caricatures of New Yorkers, mad scientists, Southerners, and women. Yet the production is hampered by technical adjustment to the various voices. For instance, the expression of characters' thoughts reverberates like a whisper in a megaphone; police voices emerging from gas masks during tunnel action are muffled and almost inaudible. These unnecessary elements are distracting and add to the impression that one is listening to a spoof of a horror story. Not recommended.Juleigh Muirhead Clark, Williamsburg, Va. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
1 Snow tested his regulator, checked both air valves, ran his hands along the slick neoprene of the suit. Everything was in order, just as it had been when he last checked it, sixty seconds before. "Another five minutes," the Dive Sergeant said, cutting the launch to half speed. "Great," came the sarcastic voice of Fernandez over the sound of the big diesel. "Just great." Nobody else spoke. Already, Snow had noticed that small talk seemed to die away when the team neared a site. He looked back over the stern, watching the froth of the Harlem River spread out behind the propeller in a brown wedge. The river was wide here, rolling sluggishly under the hot gray haze of the August morning. He turned his gaze to ward the shore, grimacing slightly as the rubber cowl pulled at the skin of his neck. Towering apartment buildings with broken windows. Ghostly shells of warehouses and factories. An abandoned playground. No, not quite abandoned: one child, swinging from a rusty frame. "Hey, Divemaster," Fernandez's voice called to him. "Be sure you got your training diapers on." Snow tugged at the ends of his gloves and continued looking toward the shore. "Last time we let a virgin out on a dive like this," Fernandez continued, "he shit his suit. Christ, what a mess. We made him sit on the transom all the way back to base. And that was off Liberty Island, too. A frigging cakewalk compared to the Cloaca." "Fernandez, shut up," the Sergeant said mildly. Snow continued to gaze over the stern. When he'd come to Scuba from regular NYPD, he had made one big mistake: mentioning that he'd once worked a Sea of Cortez dive boat. Too late, he'd learned that several of the Scuba team had at one time been commercial divers laying cable, maintaining pipelines, working oil platforms. To them, divemasters like him were pampered, underskilled wimps who liked clear water and clean sand. Fernandez, in particular, wouldn't let him for get. The boat leaned heavily to starboard as the Sergeant angled in closer to shore. He cut the power even further as they approached a thick cluster of riverfront projects. Suddenly, small, brick-lined tunnel came into view, breaking the monotony of the gray concrete facades. The Sergeant nosed the boat through the tunnel and out into the half-light beyond. Snow became aware of an indescribable smell wafting up from the disturbed waters. Tears sprang involuntarily to his eyes, and he stifled a cough. In the bow, Fernandez looked back, sniggering. Beneath Fernandez's open suit, Snow could see a shirt with the Police Scuba team's unofficial motto: We dive in shit and look for dead things. Only this time it wasn't a dead thing, but a massive wrapped brick of heroin, thrown off the Humboldt Rail Bridge during a Shootout with police the previous night. The narrow canal was lined on both sides by concrete embankments. Ahead, a police launch was waiting beneath the railroad bridge, engine off, bobbing slightly in the striped shadows. Snow could see two people on board: the pilot and a heavyset man in a badly fitted polyester suit. He was balding and a wet cigar projected from his lips. He hiked up his pants, spat into the creek, and raised one hand toward them in greeting. The Sergeant nodded toward the launch. "Look who's here." "Lieutenant D'Agosta," one of the divers in the bow replied. "Must be bad." "Anytime a cop is shot, it's bad," said the Sergeant. The Sergeant killed the engine, swinging the stern around so the two launches drifted together. D'Agosta stepped back to speak with the dive team. As he moved, the police launch heeled over slightly under his shifting weight, and Snow could see that the water left an oily, greenish residue on the hull as it slid away. "Morning," D'Agosta said. Normally ruddy-faced, in the darkness beneath the bridge the Lieutenant blinked back at them like a pale cave creature that shunned the light. "Talk to me, sir," the Dive Sergeant replied, strapping a depth gauge to his wrist. "What's the deal?" "The bust went bad," D'Agosta said. "Turns out it was just a messenger boy. He tossed the stuff off that bridge." He nodded upward toward the overhanging structure. "Then he shot up a cop and got his own ass aired out good. If we can find the brick, we can close this piece-of-shit case." The Dive Sergeant sighed. "If the guy was killed, why call us out?" D'Agosta shook his head. "What, you just gonna leave a six-hundred-grand brick of heroin down there?" Snow looked up. Between the blackened girders of the bridge, he could see the burnt facades of buildings. A thousand dirty windows stared down at the dead river. Too bad, he thought, the messenger had to throw it into the Humboldt Kill, aka Cloaca Maxima, named after the great central sewer of ancient Rome. The Cloaca was so called because of its centuries-old accumulation of shit, toxic sludge, dead animals, and PCBs. A subway lumbered by above, shuddering and screeching. Beneath his feet the boat quivered, and the surface of the glistening thick water seemed to jiggle slightly, like gelatin that had begun to set. "Okay, men," he heard the Sergeant say. "Let's get wet." Snow busied himself with his suit. He knew he was a first-rate diver. Growing up in Portsmouth, practically living in the Piscataqua River, he'd saved a couple of lives over the years. Later, in the Sea of Cortez, he'd hunted shark, done technical diving below two hundred feet. Even so, he wasn't looking forward to this particular dip. Though Snow had never been near it before, the team talked about the Cloaca often enough back at the base. Of all the foul places to dive in New York City, the Cloaca was the worst: worse than the Arthur Kill, Hell Gate, even the Gowanus Canal. Once, he'd heard, it had been a sizeable tributary of the Hudson, cutting through Manhattan just south of Harlem's Sugar Hill. But centuries of sewage, commercial construction, and neglect had turned it into a stagnant, unmoving ribbon of filth: a liquid trash can for everything imaginable. Snow waited his turn to retrieve his oxygen tanks from the stainless-steel rack, then stepped toward the stern, shrugging them over his shoulders. He still was not used to the heavy, constricting feel of the dry suit. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Sergeant approaching. "All set?" came the quiet baritone. "I think so, sir," Snow said. "What about the headlamps?" The Sergeant stared at him blankly. "These buildings cut out all the sunlight. We'll need lamps if we're going to see anything, right?" The Sergeant grinned. "It wouldn't make any difference. The Cloaca's about twenty feet deep. Below that, there's ten, maybe fifteen feet of suspended silt. As soon as your flippers touch that silt, it balloons out like a dustbomb. You won't be able to see beyond your visor. Below the silt is thirty feet of mud. The brick'll be buried somewhere in that mud. Down there, you see with your hands." He looked at Snow appraisingly, hesitating a moment. "Listen," he said in a low voice. "This won't be like those practice dives in the Hudson. I only brought you along because Cooney and Schultz are still in the hospital." Snow nodded. The two divers each had gotten a case of the "blastos"--blastomycosis, a fungal infection that attacked the solid organs--while searching for a bullet-ridden body in a limo at the bottom of the North River the week before. Even with mandatory weekly blood work to screen for parasites, bizarre diseases ruined the health of divers every year. "If you'd rather sit this one out, it's okay," the Sergeant continued. "You can stay here on deck, help with the guide ropes." Snow looked over at the other divers as they strapped on their weight belts, snugged the zippers of their dry suits tight, let the lines over the sides. He remembered the first rule of the Scuba team: Every man dives. Fernandez, making a line fast to a cleat, looked back toward them and smirked knowingly. "I'm diving, sir," Snow said. The Sergeant stared at him for another long moment. "Remember basic training. Pace yourself. First time down in that muck, divers have a tendency to hold their breath. Don't do it; that's the fastest way to an embolism. Don't overinflate your suit. And, for Christ's sake, don't let go of the rope. In the mud, you forget which way is up. Lose the rope, and the next body we come looking for will be yours." He pointed to the sternmost guide rope. "That'll be you." Snow waited, slowing his breathing, while the mask was slipped over his head and the lines attached. Then, after a final check, he went over the side. Even through the stifling, constrictive dry suit, the water felt strange. Viscous and syrupy, it didn't rush past his ears or eddy between his fingers. Pushing against it was an effort, like swimming in crankcase oil. Tightening his grip on the guide rope, he allowed himself to sink a few feet below the surface. Already the keel of the launch was invisible overhead, swallowed by a miasma of tiny particles that filled the fluid around him. He looked around through the feeble, greenish light. Immediately in front of his face, he could see his gloved hand gripping the rope. At a greater distance, he could make out his other hand, outstretched, probing the water. An infinity of motes hung in the space between. He could not see below his feet: there was only blackness. Twenty feet down into that blackness, he knew, lay the ceiling of a different world: a world of thick, encasing mud. For the first time in his life, Snow realized just how much he had depended on sunlight and clean water for his sense of security. Even at fifty meters down, the waters in the Sea of Cortez had been clear; light from his torch had given a sense of openness and space. He let himself drop another several feet, eyes straining into the blackness below. Suddenly, at the outermost reaches of his vision, he saw or thought he saw through the dim currents a solid haze beneath him, an undulating, veined surface. It was the layer of silt. He sank toward it slowly, feeling a knot of apprehension grow in his stomach. The Sergeant had said that divers often imagined they saw odd things in the thick waters. It was sometimes hard to tell what was real and what was not. His foot touched the strange floating surface--passed through it--and instantaneously a cloud roiled out, folding around him, shutting out all sight. Snow panicked for an instant, scrabbling at the guide rope. Steadying himself with the thought of sniggering Fernandez, he descended. Each movement sent a new storm of black liquid eddying against his visor. He found himself instinctively holding his breath against it, and he forced himself to breathe long, regular breaths. This is bullshit , he thought. My first real dive on the force, and I'm practically a basket case . He stopped for a moment, controlling his breathing, forcing it back into a steady rhythm. He let himself down the rope a few feet at a time, moving sparingly, trying to relax. With some surprise, he realized that it no longer mattered whether his eyes were open or shut. His mind kept returning to the thick mantle of mud that waited beneath him. Things were in that mud, encased, like insects in amber... Suddenly, his boots seemed to touch bottom. But it was unlike any seabed Snow had felt before. This bottom seemed to be decomposing; it yielded beneath his weight with a disgusting kind of rubbery resistance, sneaking up his ankles, then his knees, then his chest, like sinking into clammy quick-sand. In a moment it was over his head, and he was beneath it and still descending, slower now, encased wholly in an ooze that could not be seen but only felt, pushing close against the neoprene of his dry suit. He could hear the bubbles of his own exhalations working their way upwards around him; not with the quick abandon he was used to, but instead with a slow flatulent rolling. The mud seemed to offer more resistance as he descended. How far down was he supposed to go in this shit? He swung his free hand about as he had been taught, sweeping it through the muck. It bumped into things. In the blackness with his thick gloves it was hard to tell what they were limbs of trees, crankshafts, nasty snarls of wire, the collected waste of centuries trapped in this graveyard of mud. Another ten feet, and he'd go back up. Even that bastard Fernandez couldn't snigger after this. Abruptly, his swinging arm bumped against something. When Snow pulled at it, the thing drifted toward him with the kind of slow resistance that implied weight. Snow tucked the guide rope around the crook of his right arm and felt the thing. Whatever it was, it was not a brick of heroin. He let it go, pushing himself away. The thing swung around in the treacly eddy of his flippers and bumped up against him in the blackness, knocking his visor back and momentarily loosening his regulator. Regaining his balance, Snow began moving his hand over the object, looking for a hold with which to push it away. It was like reaching into a tangle of something. A large tree branch, maybe. But it was inexplicably soft in places. He felt