Cryptid Zoo

Gerry Griffiths knows how to set up a horror story. In this novel about an eccentric zoo featuring legendary creatures like the sasquatch, the thunderbird, and the kraken in a Jurassic Park style zoo, the first half of the novel is all about creating that feeling of uh-oh. As our main family tours the exhibits and the guide happily talks about how this animal is super bright, likes to solve problems, and can survive out of the water for short periods of time, the reader is happily imagining how all of those precious little talents are going to turn into a nightmare for the characters in about fifty pages. It’s a tremendous amount of fun, and Griffiths sets the stage for a couple dozen of these bizarre creatures to get loose and wreak havoc on our cast of tourists and zoo employees.

When the animals begin their inevitable escapes the tension grows dramatically. The first deaths begin to occur, followed by the first narrow escapes, until finally the expected chaos is rolling across the zoo and our various groups of heroes are struggling valiantly to survive. I only have two complaints. The first is that I just can’t imagine that any zoo would set up its electronic locks to open if the power went out. I mean, think about that for a moment. Zoos do not want the lions and tigers (or in this case, the flying snakes and the Chupacabra) escaping every time there was a power outage. And it wasn’t necessary. The first breakouts had already occurred in completely believable ways. Those monsters could have ended up freeing the others as a natural result of their destructive behavior.

My second complaint is that the novel ends too quickly. There is a ton going on and it’s all really interesting and I would have liked to see a lot more of it. The cryptids were already introduced and I could have happily read another hundred pages of our cast of heroes surviving their encounters with them. But then, many of the monsters escape into the wild so maybe Griffiths ended it where he did so he could have a sequel.

Very bloody Jurracic Psrk

Terrific idea but the characters both human and animal were never developed. I kept reading but it never happened.

EXCELLENT STORY, CHARACTERS!!! I was only about 4 chapters into Cryptid Zoo and was so very invested, caught up that I went back on Amazon, bought Cryptid Country, Cryptid Circus, Cryptid Island (prequel to Cryptid Zoo). Have already finished 3 of the books, am not reading Cryptid Island for the back story on Alan & Moss, his wife Laney! I am so hoping that Gerry Griffiths writes more sequels, books in his Cryptid series. I read constantly, always have and it’s been a VERY long time since a series so “sucked me in” that I could barely put it down to do anything else!!! I’m pretty sure that I’ll be buying, reading all of Mr. Griffiths books!!

b bbb book started out very interesting and then turned into a Jurassic Park rerun! I was quite disappointed as I was looking forward to something more in the animatronic field that would come alive! But when they started with the DNA sequencing, it was definitely shades of Jurassic Park and Lost World. I couldn’t give this my full approval as it just felt too much of a copy of Jurassic Park.