Relic (Pendergast, Book 1)

I just finished reading Relic (Pendergast, Book 1), it was not until I was a good ¼ of the way into the book did I feel the need to text my boyfriend and ask if this book was possible a movie. Which I learnt there was. I had seen the movie years ago on a plane flying home for the summer. I must have been around 14 and all I remembered was a monster in the New York City Museum. So I can’t say how similar the book and the movie are, or how horrible of a job they did turning it into a movie (because they usually do a really horrible job).

Relic starts with a number of gruesome murders taking place in the New York Museum of Natural History right before a superstition exhibit opens. A number of people have been found with the head removed the their frontal lobe & pituitary gland missing.


One of the pieces that is to be displayed in the exhibit is the Mbwun (meaning “He who walks on all fours”), a statue of a monstrous ½ man ½ reptile. The statue was discovered in the Brazilian rainforest while Dr. Julian Whittlesey is searching for proof of the Kothoga. Dr. Julian Whittlesey disappears upon his return to New York.

As more murders take place on museum property FBI agent Pendergast shows up. He works alongside the NYPD to help bring in the murdered before opening night. However, it soon becomes relevant that the murderer is not a man, but in fact a beast of some kind. Margo Green, a grad student at the museum finds the DNA link that proves the murder is in fact a creature with human instances.

Refusing to close down the museum Dr. Ian Cuthbert is convinced that even though the murders are occurring, the superstition exhibit must go on, putting everyone who attends that exhibition in danger.

As the exhibition opens things begin to go downhill fast and it is up to Maro Green, her advisor Dr. Frock and Detective Pendergast to stop the monster that is now on an anger driven rampage through the hundreds of guests who are trapped inside the museum

I must say that this is not one of the best books that I have read, but now that I have finished it, I will move onto Book 2, Reliquary.

This book seemed to drag a little and it had more dialog in some places then was needed. The book had its moments where it moved along at a very decent pace, and in some places it died down and dragged.

I think I shall watch the movie next, hopefully it is better than the book.