Umboi Island
A Creature X Mystery
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
The Creature X team travels to Papua New Guinea to investigate sightings of a surviving pterosaur.
Laura Reagan, host of Creature X, wants to leave North America behind and step out from the shadow of her father’s cryptozoological research. She leads her team to Umboi Island, off the coast of Papua New Guinea, to shoot a cryptozoological documentary about the mysterious Ropen, a bioluminescent pterosaur-like creature that has somehow survived extinction.
In a stroke of luck, Laura and her team see a mysterious purple light above the trees. Could it actually be what they’re searching for? But the hunt for the Ropen takes a drastic turn when a body turns up in the Creature X camp. With satellite phones down, Laura and her team are stuck on the island with a murderer — and no chance of help.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The search for a mythical creature explodes into murder and mayhem in this propulsive instalment of J.J. Dupuis’ series about cryptozoologist investigator Laura Reagan. This time, Laura and the crew from her Creature X documentary TV series find themselves in Papua New Guinea on the hunt for the elusive Ropen—the purported descendant of the pterodactyl. But sharing space with a British research team in the heart of what turns out to be a major drug-trafficking route is pretty tense…especially when a dead body turns up. With a subtle hat tip to Michael Crichton, Dupuis uses the scientific mystery of the Ropen to frame a fun, rip-roaring action adventure that takes full advantage of its alluring setting.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dupuis's entertaining third Creature X mystery (after 2021's Lake Crescent) smoothly combines scientific mystery and action. Laura Reagan, the host of Creature X, a cryptozoological documentary series, and her team have traveled to New Guinea to follow up on recent reported sightings of "a flying creature called the Ropen," which resembles a pterosaur. The Ropen has supposedly been spotted flying above the jungle "at night on leathery wings, emitting a haunting bioluminescent glow." A video taken by two boys, showing a glowing something in flight, suggests there may be an actual living fossil for the Creature X crew to discover. But that quest is sidetracked after someone is found dead, an apparent suicide who used Reagan's knife to slit his wrists. Her suspicions of homicide grow after she finds that all the satellite phones linking the expedition to the outside world have disappeared. The prose evokes the verdant setting perfectly and complements the page-turning plot. Fans of Lincoln Child's Jeremy Logan books will hope this series has a long run.
