cover image The Shadowkiller

The Shadowkiller

Matthew Scott Hansen, . . Simon & Schuster, $25 (436pp) ISBN 978-0-7432-9473-7

Hansen (Confessions of an Enron Executive with Lynn Brewer) makes his fiction debut with a predictable thriller about the legendary North American ape-man Bigfoot. After a fire set by humans claims the lives of a male Bigfoot's family, the creature goes on a rampage of revenge, killing and devouring countless victims in the Pacific Northwest. The authorities first get a sense that something unusual is transpiring when several people disappear, and large, mysterious tracks are found in the vicinity. Three men with different agendas track the beast: Ty Greenwood, a former software mogul shunned after he earlier reported sighting a Bigfoot; Chief Ben Eagleclaw, a Native American actor with a spiritual connection to the creature; and sheriff's detective Mac Schneider, who first finds concrete physical traces of the rampaging animal. Light on science and full of gruesome violence, this isn't in the same league as Jurassic Park , Jaws or Philip Kerr's Esau , an intelligent speculation concerning Bigfoot's Asian cousin, the Abominable Snowman. (Jan.)