Synopsis Natural History Museum curator Margo Green helps the police to track a grotesque beast who prowls the basement of the museum.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-05-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 375 pages | | Height: | 9.8 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 24.8 oz |
Publisher's Note When police divers find two skeletons locked in a bony embrace deep in the mud off the Manhattan shoreline, Natural History Museum curator Margo Green is called in to aid in the investigation. However, she soon learns that she is needed for more than just her anthropological expertise. The authorities also want her for reasons she has been struggling to forget: her experience the prior year, battling a horrific beast loose in the basement corridors of the Museum. The mystery of the skeletons is deepened by a string of brutal murders. Aided by police lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta, the enigmatic FBI agent Pendergast, and the brilliant scientist Dr. Frock, Margo reluctantly begins tracking down their source. The investigation leads them to deserted warehouses, burned-out laboratories, the underground lairs of homeless "mole people" - and, at last, to the stupendous warren of tunnels, sewers, and galleries that riddle the bedrock far beneath Manhattan, where the ultimate secret of the Museum Beast is at last revealed.
Industry Reviews "Manhattan has numerous miles of underground. There is the subways, the sewers, the aqueducts, and numerous electrical systems. There are walkways beneath the street. No one living or working on the island really takes much notice at this netherworld except when something goes wrong. A police diver has found the skeletons of two people who apparently were killed by cannibals living beneath the city's streets. When more murders occur, the same crack team that stopped the Mbdwun (read "The Relic") are reassembled. Homicide police officer Vincent D'Agosta, crime reporter Bill Smithback, anthropologist Margo Green, and FBI agent Pendergast all want to forget the Mbdwun murders. However, they now are confronted with underground homeless people and potentially a race of mini-Mbdwun. No solution, including flooding the underworld, seems right. However, the tetrad of survivors better come up with something soon because the city is under attack from below. Though not quite the page burner of "The Relic," "Reliquary" is a fast-paced, quite interesting thriller. The return of the magnificent four (especially Mr. Cool Pendergast) adds a feeling of homecoming to the reader. However, it is the underground tour of New York City, an expedition that would excite Ed Norton and Jean Valjean, that turns this suspense- laden book into a fun to read novel." Lehmann-Haupt
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