by Annelise Ryan
3 stars
A cozy mystery with a cryptid twist.
Cryptozoologist and bookstore-owner, Morgan Carter, is hired to help the police with an open investigation. The bodies of animals and humans have been washing up on the shores of Lake Michigan with mysterious injuries and Morgan is tasked with determining if their deaths could have been caused by a creature in the lake. Ever the skeptic, Morgan can’t pass up the opportunity to examine the evidence of a possible real-life cryptid. But as her investigation proceeds, she uncovers more than she ever imagined.
As a lifelong Wisconsin resident who enjoys visiting Door County, it was fun to explore the area in this book (the familiar, the unfamiliar, and the fictionalized).
I enjoyed the premise and loved the cryptozoology aspects. Honestly, the most interesting part was when Morgan went through the evidence of whether it was possible for such a creature to survive in the Great Lakes and go undetected for so long.
The pacing is a bit slow. Multiple tragic backstories, plenty of info dumping, excessive descriptions, and the obligatory romantic possibility made the story kind of drag for me despite the exciting premise.
An interesting concept with okay execution. I likely won’t read more in the series, but am intrigued on how the hodag investigation goes.