"The wooden door frame was scored and gouged into a welter of fresh splinters...

Mbwun by caramitten (deviantArt)

"...as if something with claws had been scrabbling at it."
 ~ The Relic, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (1995)

I read this story years ago, and when I read it again this month I had a weird sense of deja-vu. Not because I'd read the novel once more, but because there was a film that was oddly similar to it in comparison. Then it hit me. The movie "Hell Boy" (2004). The museum, the overall description/vision of the monster, were much the same. 

Regardless, I have to say I loved this novel. It reads like a well researched tale, from descriptions of the museum to the autopsy scenes. There wasn't much I found unbelievable on the pages except for a couple of autopsy and death investigation missteps. For example, the pituitary does not come out when the brain is removed. It's located in a very small space inside the skull and has to be manually extracted with a long handled scalpel (Personally done it, so I know...). The medical examiner would have to be looking inside the skull for it, not at the brain (page 61). In addition, hands on dead bodies are not covered with plastic when they are recovered and sent to the morgue from a crime scene. Plastic degrades DNA and ruins good evidence. The hands would be covered with paper bags instead.

One other mistake I noticed was on page 80, there is mention of 'ballistics analysis,' but there were no 'ballistics'/bullets to analyze. The correct term would be "blood-spatter analysis," I believe, also termed 'bloodstain pattern analysis' by some. Blood-spatter analysis is the term that's been used since the 1950's, and I was surprised at that mistake. Ballistics is the study of things related to gunfire, trajectory of bullets, examination of patterns on casings, etc. Blood-spatter analysis looks a patterns of blood in relation to a crime (or suicide). Arterial spurts, splatters from hammers or other tools used on human bodies or other 'bleeding' episodes, constitute blood-spatter analysis.

There were some lovely made-up tidbits such as the "Callisto effect," Callisto being one of Jupiter's moons, or (in Greek mythology) the nymph Artemis turned into a bear and set into the stars, but that was an enjoyable piece of fun to read amid real scientific information such as "convergent evolution."
There was a lot of research put into this book, and I enjoyed much of it.

There were some parts of the novel that dragged for me. Some of the anthropological discussions were long winded and unnecessary, and slowed the pace of the story (example page 55, Kindle version). I think the long winded pieces were merely a case of trying to incorporate too much hard earned research into the text. Some of these pieces could have been edited out for a punchier tale.

Still, there was a lot of intrigue, fast action and suspense in the prose. The monster becomes more and more real, until we actually see it through the eyes of agent Pendergast. It's evolution is still in doubt until the truth of it's origin is uncovered in the epilogue. (I still have trouble understanding how it made it back to the U.S./New York undetected.) And I loved how the ending left room for several continuations of the story. Kawakita: possibly infected (his asthma gone/his shoes too tight). Possible infection of drug users in New York city, as Kawakita doled out what he thought was a 'controlled' substance (pun intended). And what IF there were other connections to the virus-plant that were loose in the world? Many possibilities!

Overall, a very fun book, and I look forward to reading "Reliquary" in the future.

Relic by ndhill (devinantArt)