Water Monsters South of the Border

Available free from Smashwords.This is a well-researched cryptid book, reporting on sightings and speculating (how can it be more?) on the existence in recent history of ‘water monsters south of the border' - as it says in the title! (In cryptozoology, a pseudoscience, a cryptid is an animal whose existence cryptozoologists believe has been suggested but has not been discovered or documented by the scientific community or by direct evidence.)The book covers three regions in order – South America, Mexico & Central America, and the Caribbean. This is a follow up book from the author of [b:People Are Seeing Something: A Survey of Lake Monsters in the United States and Canada 28631277 People Are Seeing Something A Survey of Lake Monsters in the United States and Canada Denver Michaels https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1458059330s/28631277.jpg 48740780] which covered the same topic in the United States and Canada.The book approaches this topic in a number of ways. For each ‘monster' type, the book outlines the common features reported, it describes related local myths and legends, it deals with historic sightings (ie recorded in letters, books, newspapers), it outlines recent sightings, it presents any evidence (photos, video etc) and then draws either a conclusion, or identifies that a conclusion isn't obvious. As noted in the conclusion section of the book, the monsters can be split into five categories of ‘monster' – Giant Snakes; Massive Fish; animals best described as Living Dinosaurs; ‘Water Tigers'; and Mythical Creatures.With some of the monsters, it is not a massive leap to attribute the sightings etc to natural phenomenon, or to another animal. The author however is obviously very open to the possibility of living dinosaurs (or at least living decedents of) or other undiscovered animals. There are some common scenarios across most of the viable locations these potential monsters reside which make the proposition more possible than not (for me at least) – they are remote (generally far from habitation), they are vast areas (be it massive glacial lakes, massive swamp areas or areas like the Amazon), they are hard to access or at least not commonly accessed, there are environments or natural features which provide a difficult to access lair (very deep lakes, very murky waters, underwater tunnels / holes / caves etc). With a massive bibliography at the rear, and a huge number of endnotes giving references, there is a real legitimacy to this book. While there is speculation and many open ended questions raised, this is the nature of the subject – I found this a very well put together book.Enjoyable easy and quick read. Four Stars.