Maritime monster mystery merits a read

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This article was published 15/02/2025 (562 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Combining a Lovecraftian monster with cryptozoological swashbuckling and the quirkiness of Newfoundland, J.R. McConvey’s first novel False Bodies is a fun, horror-tinged adventure.

Toronto-based McConvey’s debut story collection, Different Beasts, garnered some praise in 2019, including the KOBO emerging writer prize for speculative fiction. He follows this up with the slim novel False Bodies, which continues in a similar vein of monsters and examining longstanding horror tropes. This time, McConvey zeroes in on H.P. Lovecraft, tentacled monsters and bizarre cults.

The novel centres on Eddie “The Yeti” Gesner, a cryptozoologist who reads like a combination of Jack Reacher and Indiana Jones. For the uninitiated, cryptozoology concerns the pursuit of scientific evidence of cryptids, mythological or fantastic creatures which supposedly exist (or have existed) but for which proof remains elusive — think Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. Gesner is fairly popular on the convention circuit, but mostly for rumours about his past: while hiking in the Himalayas, his wife disappeared. Gesner claims she simply vanished, blinked — or was taken — into another dimension. He remains a suspect in her death, but there is no proof.

Gesner is contacted about a case off the coast of Newfoundland where an oil rig has supposedly been attacked by a kraken, resulting in the deaths of all the crew onboard. Though the bodies were initially discovered, they and a giant tentacle found on the scene have since disappeared. Answers are in short supply as the local authorities appear to be conspiring with Haxan Corp, the energy corporation that owns the rig and is eager to keep everything quiet.

Once in St. John’s, N.L., Gesner quickly stumbles upon the old diary of Moses Kane, a local reverend who encountered a similarly gigantic tentacled beast in the late 1800s. Gesner quickly becomes a conspicuous presence in Newfoundland and attracts some unwanted attention, all while trying to work with a rogue police detective in her quest to find out what really happened to the oil rig workers.

The narrative moves forward in a parallel structure; Gesner’s first-hand description of his investigation into the events on the rig, and the text of Moses Kane’s diary. Kane’s diary is essentially a straightforward first-person horror story straight out of H.P. Lovecraft. McConvey knows how to emulate this style and does it well. The mysteries promised by the snippets of this diary are what propel readers to seek answers alongside Gesner.

Eddie The Yeti’s narrative is more of a horror-inflected but largely fun mystery-adventure. It never quite feels as though Gesner is in any real danger, even as he peels back layers of corruption and bizarre experiments.

The novel is short and propulsive, never letting readers grow bored; the latter third, however, does suffer from a dump of exposition. The figure at the centre of the novel’s mystery takes several pages straight out of a Bond villain handbook and goes to great lengths to explain his whole dastardly plan to Eddie, whom he thinks he has safely subdued.

Despite faltering toward the ending, McConvey can certainly weave an interesting tale, and Eddie the Yeti Gesner is a character easily transplanted into other locales and situations on the hunt for more cryptids. In fact, it feels as though McConvey already has more up his sleeve when it comes to revealing the story of what really happened to Eddie’s wife.

It seems likely we’ll see more of Eddie Gesner in the not-too-distant future.

Keith Cadieux is a Winnipeg writer and editor. His latest story collection, Donner Parties and Other Anti-Social Gatherings, is out now from At Bay Press. He also co-edited the horror anthology What Draws Us Near, published by Little Ghosts Books.