Relic is a 1995 book by the bestselling duo Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child that was made into a film in 1997, “The Relic,” starring Penelope Ann Miller, Tom Sizemore, and James Whitmore. The movie takes some liberties with the book’s plot, not least of which is switching from the New York location in which it’s set — in a fictionalized version of the American Museum of Natural History — to Chicago because the filmmakers couldn’t get a deal with the Manhattan museum (where Preston once worked).

There were other changes, too, as the writers had to compress a 480-page book into a two-hour movie. A main character, FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, was totally written out, even though he became the basis for his own series of books.

I first saw the movie ages ago and recently read the book because I liked a couple of other novels Preston had authored or co-authored. I re-viewed the movie — a horror film with a monster from South America who devours people — thanks to the magic of streaming.

The book and the movie agree on the main plot points, with the latter combining NYPD Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta and the FBI agent into one character. The principal player in both versions is Margo Green, who is either a graduate student or a doctor of evolutionary biology depending on whether you’re reading or watching.

Old Bones, in the latest Preston & Child series, deals with finding the so-called Lost Camp of the infamous Donner Party, site of horrors that went beyond the cannibalism that beset the doomed migrants. It features Santa Fe archeologist Nora Kelly, who appeared in Preston & Child’s 1999 novel, Thunderhead, which involves a search for an Aztec cult in a remote Utah canyon. Only later, in 2019, does Kelly get her own series after returning to New Mexico (guess where Preston moved after leaving New York) from the East Coast.

In Old Bones, Preston & Child mention “The Relic” as a cult movie, perhaps having a bit of fun with readers since the film hardly rose to cult-status level. Archeologist Kelly will return next June, when the fifth novel of the series, Badlands, comes out.

The Preston & Child stories, as well as Preston’s solo work, are a blend of arcane history, geography, and horror characterized by excellent research, attention to detail, and usually some kind of danger. The Codex, for example, a Preston offering, involves a Mayan manuscript with a possible cure for cancer, while Tyrannosaur Canyon treats meteor particles that may have killed the dinosaurs.

There is, in short, a whole universe of interrelated characters in the Preston & Child universe. There’s even a fan wiki to help readers keep track of them all.

Darrell Delamaide is author of the novels The Grand Mirage and Gold.