Umboi Island: A Creature X Mystery

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. Agent: Kelvin Kong, K2 Agency (Canada). (Apr.)