Customer Reviews

Monster Hunter

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There cannot be many people who have been saved from madness and suicide by an interest in cryptozoology. In this

book Jon Downes, head of the world's only organisation for full-time experimental cryptozoology and the nearest thing

we have to a real-life Professor Challenger, gives an account of his life and investigations. He is frank - often jaw-droppingly so - about his illnesses, alcoholism, failed relationships, bouts of depression and experiments with drugs. But the real heart of the book is his account of how,

after an unhappy time as a mental nurse brought him close to suicide, a childhood interest in known and unknown animals

led him to found the Centre for Fortean Zoology. Since then the CFZ has investigated all kinds of anomalous phenomena, but his defining work has been the hunt for mysterious creatures. The book describes studies of everything from the blood-drinking Puerto Rican chupacabra to 'Mish-a-boh-quas the singing mouse'; all the investigations are marked by a serious search for evidence in the field, backed up by a good deal of practical zoological knowledge. In a subject where most of the research seems to take place on the Internet, Jon Downes deserves a good deal of credit for treating cryptozoology as an experimental science.

Just as fascinating are the people he meets. He has been involved successively with the worlds of mental illness, rock music and Fortean studies: not surprisingly, the book contains such a collection of eccentrics and grotesques that if they ever bring out an illustrated edition Bob Crumb will be the only cartoonist qualified for the job.

The professional appearance of the book (the cover is especially striking) is spoilt by terrible editing; future editions will presumably add an index and contents page. The unified theory of Fortean knowledge that occupies several pages

is a 'theory' only in the Pickwickian sense and belongs in a New Age book, which this emphatically is not. Although it is traditional for Amazon reviewers to give five stars (or else one) I am going to save the fifth star for the second edition, since the book deserves one.