Customer Reviews

MAN-MONKEY - In Search of the British Bigfoot

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I would buy Nick Redfern's new book, Man-Monkey: In Search of the British Bigfoot, for the title and charming British place names alone: Grubstreet, Cannock Chase, and Shugborough Hall. Sounds like a landscape straight out of Harry Potter. But the hairy, apelike creature that has haunted this part of the British Isles since 1879 is anything but kid-stuff. Sightings that included a giant "chimpanzee", a large and hairy, upright bear, a werewolf-like "Moon Beast" and more became the targets of Redfern's five-year, on-site investigation. In the course of his work, Redfern scrounged up forgotten old files, interviewed dozens of witnesses, and quaffed endless flasks of tea in his hunt for the truth about this furry fiend. Redfern examines explanations from the natural to the Fortean, allowing that the ancient myth of the shape-shifting Kelpie just may play a part in these strange appearances. This book is an important contribution to the annals of furry, upright creature lore and belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in unidentified animals or unexplained mysteries.

Having just reviewed Nick Redfern's "Memoirs of a Monster Hunter" here at Amazon just a few days ago...and mentioning in said review that he just keeps "churning the books out"...I have to report that he's done it yet again. Here's yet ANOTHER one! We are looking at someone here who is about as prolific as some sort of Fortean rabbit! One almost gets the impression he's out to ultimately out-title Brad Steiger at this game.

So, one might well ask, if you turn the things out that fast, can the quality of the writing and research be that good? Well, the answer to that is that (to use a VERY favorite catch-phrase of Redfern's) it "well and truly" can!

The book is good, very good! It has all the hallmark characteristics of a Redfern tome; sly humor (or, should we say "humour"?), a chatty, folksy, glib style of writing, and a propensity for drawing the reader right into the thick of things right from the get-go.

And drawn into what?, exactly, one might ask. Well, drawn into an atmospheric run of mystery that conjures up thunder and lighting and pouring rain in a reader's mind; and dense, rolling fogs, and spooky rural countrysides filled with ghosts , crumbling castles, haunted manor houses and canal overpass bridges, possible dark occult practices of evil intent, sorcerously summoned (perhaps) creatures of darkness, and....since this IS a Nick Redfern book...plenty of time spent in the local pub , chugging a "refreshing beverage", and being regaled by the latest witness to things chilling and arcane.

And, like all Redfern products, it is an absorbing, fast read. You can immerse yourself in a Nick Redfern volume and just plain roll through it
in next to no time. There is never a thing boring about anything this author issues forth. Tediousness is alien to his writing style and that's why I always look forward to a new Nick book. Some people writing non-fiction can be dull as dirt, but the shiny-headed one is not one of that
ilk. Like his beloved Ramones, when Nick writes...he ROCKS.

This particular Redfern product features a folklorish creature that has been reputedly seen many times in the Shropshire countryside and the woods of Cannock Chase, and, particularly around the "Shroppie", the Shropshire Union Canal(an old fashioned narrow-boat canal) that runs inland from just outside Liverpool, some sixty seven miles to Wolverhampton. A particular bridge over this canal, Bridge Nr. 39, has, since the nineteenth century, a seeming locus of run-ins between passersby and a kind of ape-thing, or spectral "chimpanzee" (no, it really doesn't come across as Bigfoot...never hits taller than 5 feet..despite Nick's clever book subtitle of "British Bigfoot") that wants to angrily harass them...and then disappear.(Note: bigfoot-like beings DO appear herein, but the man-monkey itself doesn't really belong to their fraternity).

Tracking the story of this beastie Nick gets told it is summoned, perhaps, like many werewolves are (?) by a black magic group. OR is it the re-incarnated (partially) of one man's great-great grandfather, sent back by...could it be, Satan?...as punishment for suicide? Or is it a kelpie that also appears in the area as a mermaid and/or a canal-trolling
oversized eel or snake?

Whatever it is, and, of course, we never do learn well and truly what, the pondering of the mystery is quite an entertaining chore.

This book (which has a cool center..or centre...photo section)will, if you're old enough...or film-savvy enough...have you thinking of old Hammer horror films and imagining Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Hazel Court stalking the land once more in search of "things that go bump in the night". Or even Basil Rathbone, urgently telling Nigel Bruce, "Quick, Watson, the game's afoot!"

Should you buy this book? Of course you should. Silly question. It is a
boogerishly good read. Go ahead...you KNOW you want to! Besides, if you do, you'll well and truly encourage him to keep writing them...and that's a good thing!

Now, having said all this, tis time to trot down to "The Blacke Dogge Pub"
and knock back a mug or two! Salud!

This book was really cool. I love Nick RedFern books any way. I didn't know England has so much weirdness going on there. I would love to have him do more about England and Scotland and there strange creatures.