Cryptid
Eric Penz
Reviewed by Sarra Borne
Cryptid: n. subject of Cryptozoological scrutiny; animals of
unexplained form or size, or unexpected occurrence in time or space.
Opening with the alleged suicide of Meriwether Lewis, Cryptid takes the
reader two hundred years into the past in order to set the stage for a
page-turning, conspiracy theory thriller. The circumstances around
Lewis’ death, and the missing journals from the Lewis and Clark
expedition, have enough unanswered questions to keep the speculation
flying, and author Penz uses this to great advantage.
It doesn’t take long for Penz to move his story into the present time
and almost immediately after that he introduces the key player,
Gigantopithecus. Long known to be extinct, fossilized remnants of this
Giant Ape are concentrated mainly in China, where the natives grind
them up to use in various health-giving potions.
Paleontologist Samantha Russell has spent her career seeking the truth
about Gigantopithecus, excavating tiny fossilized bits and pieces out
of the ground. When a packing crate arrives at her dig site only
moments before Chinese government officials escort her out of the
country, she barely has time to register that the specimens inside the
box are bone, not stone. This discovery prompts her to seek out the
sender, cryptozoologist Dr. Jon Ostman, a man virtually excommunicated
from the scientific community for his interest in subjects such as the
American Sasquatch.
A specimen so recently deceased would be a gold mine and a feather in
the cap of whomever published the proof. It would also be an
environmental nightmare for the forestry industry, as logging would
have to be stopped in the fertile Olympic forests of Washington while
an impact study is done. Herein lies the controversy: Big Business and
the US Government are teaming up to stop the scientists while other
private industries attempt to push forth the exact same discovery.
The story brilliantly balances between scientific theory and
heart-pounding thrill. Cryptid mingles science fact with history into a
story that equals the best historical mysteries. Some of the best and
most plausible information is entirely fictitious, but is handed out in
such a manner that the reader will ingest it just as easily as the real
thing.