Boggy Creek: The Legend is True – Bigfoot, Campers and Bloodshed

I picked up Boggy Creek a few weeks ago, and have been looking forward to it ever since. I have never read much about bigfoot. Growing up in the UK and now living in the Netherlands, it was not a legend I was really ever exposed to. Unlike Eric. S Brown (who dropped around for a chat last week ) who grew up in the area and was raised with the legend hushing him to sleep.

This familiarity with the legend certainly comes through in the writing. The book is two tales woven together, coming together at the very end.

Jennifer is grieving the loss of her eccentric, solitude loving father and is travelling up to his backwater home to clear her head and sort through his things. Her friend tags along and, in true horror style invites her friend, who invites his girlfriend. Throw in said friends boyfriend and some beer and you have a party. The property is on the edge of town, by the woods, and when the rather unusual neighbour arrives to warn them all about the monster, and offer his protective services, they shoo him away and continue to have fun.

The second storyline involves the town deputy, who is sick of the number of violent deaths in the town, and decides to put an end to the monster that is causing it. We are introduced to this beast – Bigfoot – in the first few pages, and know that it is not a case of mistaken identity. Bigfoot exists, it hates men, but enjoys the pleasure of women.

The story alternates, for the large part in a chapter on chapter off storyline. The teens frolic and eventually decide to camp in the woods for a night. The deputy, against the orders of the Sheriff head off into the woods, but not to camp, but heavily armed and ready for war.

One by one the bigfoot picks off … well, everybody more or less, his sheer power enough to rip a man in two and sever body parts, not to mention the teeth, the hunger for flesh. The monster is a great creation, that stays true to my understanding of the myth, in terms of size and appearance.

It isn’t until the final chapter(s) that the two storylines converge, as everybody is running for their lives.

Who survives, if anybody? How many bigfoot are there hiding in the woods… what have they been doing with all of the women they kidnap over the years? Well… to learn that you are going to have to buy the book.

It is a short novella and I polished it off in a few hours. The length is good, the pacing is good, everything about the book is good. Is it great… in parts, in many parts in face, barring a couple of small details, nitpicking really, I cannot say anything bad about this book.

If you are looking for action, adventure, bloodshed and horror, then this is the book for you.