Books

...I didn't know that if a girl broke your heart, another girl, virtuous at least in spirit, could mend it on the same night.

The Feast of Love: A Novel by Charles Baxter

Late one night, Charlie Baxter wakes with a start from a bad dream and decides to take a walk through his Ann Arbor neighborhood. After catching sight of two lovers entangled together on the fifty-yard line of the football field, he comes upon Bradley W. Smith, a friend and fellow insomniac, who convinces Charlie to listen to the first of many tales that will become a luminous narrative of love in its sublime, agonizing, and eternal complexity.

We meet Kathryn, Bradley's first wife, who leaves her husband for another woman, and Diana, Bradley's second wife, whose cold, secretive nature makes her more suitable as a mistress than as a spouse. We meet Chloe and Oscar, whose dreams for their future together are more traditional than their multiple body piercings and wild public displays of affection might suggest. We meet Esther and Harry Ginsberg, Bradley's neighbors, whose love for their lost son persists despite his hatred of them. And we follow Bradley, ex-husband, employer, and friend, on his journey toward conjugal happiness. The community of souls found in The Feast of Love is unforgettable -- as is the perfect symphony their harmonized voices create.

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Hidden deep beneath Manhattan lies a warren of tunnels, sewers, and galleries, mostly forgotten by those who walk the streets above. There lies the ultimate secret of the Museum Beast. When two grotesquely deformed skeletons are found deep in the mud off the Manhattan shoreline, museum curator Margo Green is called in to aid the investigation. Margo must once again team up with police Lieutenant D'Agosta and FBI agent Pendergast, as well as the brilliant Dr. Frock, to try and solve the puzzle. The trail soon leads deep underground, where they will face the awakening of a slumbering nightmare.

A year and a half after the museum beast came to New York, two bodies are found on a routine police dive for a package of heroin thrown off a bridge. No one suspects the museum beast is involved since it was killed and transported away, but Margo Green and Dr. Frock are once again asked to help if they can identify these strangely misshapen bodies.

While it is their work to find out the identity of the bodies, it is up to the police to find out where they came from and how they made it to where they were discovered. This portion of the story was the most interesting to me as it described (how accurately I cannot say) the vast network of tunnels beneath Manhattan and the communities of homeless people who live there.

While I really enjoyed this book, it is not one I can recommend broadly. I consider Reliquary to be a guilty-pleasure sci-fi thriller. It had wonderful suspense that would probably leave most readers on the edge of their seats, but there were enough murders and far-fetched scientific "discoveries" to limit the number of readers who would enjoy this book. And at times there was almost too much going on. I was content with the complexity of the story, but they lost me with one particular subplot which continued (seemingly) only to keep one of the recurring characters involved.

I don't think I am the only one who is skeptical of sequels. I think that can be evidenced by Reliquary being labeled as "sequel to the New York Times best seller Relic" and it not being a bestseller on its own. I thought Reliquary was just as good if not better than Relic. Don't be afraid to pick up this sequel.

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"And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."