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This is one of the most bizarre nonfiction books I've ever read. It's like 25% history of 19th century stage magic, 25% applied kleptomania, and 50% "Using Roofies: For Dummies!"

It opens with a lengthy introduction about the early days of the C.I.A. and how the concept of fair play went right out the window in favor of ruthlessly using any possible advantage for information-gathering purposes. Apparently that included hiring Houdini and his contemporary ilk to teach agents how to do slight of hand tricks. After a recap of some of the more silly and out-there methods we tried (and failed) to kill Fidel Castro, the book pivots to the actual reprinting of an original classified manual from the 50's that was rediscovered in 2007.

From this point on, a lot of time is spent on multiple methods for slipping 1) pills, 2) powders, and 3) liquids into an unsuspecting mark's drink before we change gears and talk about how to use distraction and psychological tricks to swipe small objects right in front of someone's eyes. Which I guess would be handy skills for an aspiring spy. The part that interested me the most and what felt most like my understanding of spycraft - recognition signals and working as teams - was given the least amount of time, but at least it was addressed at all.

It's a very dated manual of its time (it's assumed that everyone smokes cigarettes, carries loose change, and that women don't leave the house without at least one handkerchief), but as a historical time capsule of what early espionage techniques looked like you could certainly do worse. Also there are tons of helpful sketches and diagrams, so maybe try getting your hands on a physical printing if you're interested.

Urban legends and hyper-local word-of-mouth stories have always interested me, and what are cryptids but a smaller niche of that already limited subculture? I had thought that I was well-versed in all the different kinds of critters that may or may not be roaming this country and going bump in the night, but apparently there are a lot more than I realized!

I did enjoy the premise of this book more than the execution however. There are interesting glimpses at why some towns embrace their local cryptids with annual festivals and statues, whereas others are embarrassed by supposed sightings from decades ago. I wish there was more exploration into the anthropological and cultural aspects of how unsubstantiated creatures can affect local communities, but chapters were too short and there was too much ground to cover to really allow for that kind of deeper analysis. Just when things were getting interesting, the chapter would end and we'd be launched into another anecdote starting with teenage boys riding around the backwood roads of their small town in the middle of the night (a surprising number of cryptid sightings begin this way).

This also felt like it was aimed towards maybe a slightly younger audience than I was expecting, so I'd recommend this for younger readers or just anyone looking for a broad but shallow understanding of Bigfoot, Mothman, the Jersey Devil, and the rest of the gang. Anything more substantial than that, maybe look elsewhere.

Always feels good when you luck out and read multiple good books back-to-back. The fifth book of a six-book series I was seriously debating bailing on was not what I was expecting to continue the streak, but a welcome surprise nonetheless!

This is a strange format because it's really a collection of self-contained standalone vignettes that when read in the printed order presents a more cohesive through-line. My understanding is that the author just kept knocking out these shorter snapshots until he had enough of them to slap them together and call it a book. There are recurring characters, but sometimes they're given reintroductions at the beginning of a chapter and previous events are recapped as if you're reading the current chapter in a vacuum. Can't recall ever reading another book in this style.

This franchise has had some serious highs and lows for me. The worldbuilding is a good balance of serious and whimsical and there's some really creative scenes that play out with high-tech inventions. The biggest thing that detracted from my enjoyment of the previous entries was the protagonist, who thankfully has finally (in-fiction) retired and does not appear at all in this book. Instead, it was basically all of the good parts I liked (the setting, the aliens, the politicking, combat scenes) without all of the bad parts I didn't (bad attempts at humor, Boomer-coded main character, undeserved ending).

There's no real resolution to the central conflict here and this absolutely is a filler piece of media, but I find that I don't mind because the individual mini-arcs were so entertaining on their own. And having come this far, I definitely think I'll give the final book a shot thanks to the refreshing momentum this one gave.

As someone who enjoys coming up with trip itineraries and researching far-away lands, the thought of going on a vacation abroad with your friends and everyone having a really, really bad time is a special kind of hell for me to think about. Which I know was not meant to be the actual scary part of this book, but that's what happens here and I didn't realize that was a personal nightmare of mine.

So this was an unexpectedly contentious book club read (the woes of being the only horror girlie!) and it was my pick, so naturally I'm a little defensive here. The general consensus was: too much introspection, not scary enough. Which I kind of dispute because I find pedal-to-the-metal nonstop horror without lulls to fall flat, and there are two distinct spooky scenes in this book that will stick out in my memory long after finishing it. So yes, the haters are wrong.

A common critique I saw mentioned about this book is that there's a very distinct first part and a very distinct second part, so at least I was prepared for that going into it. It is a continuous plot with the same protagonist, but there is a very strong tone and momentum shift as we go from wilderness/creature-feature survival horror to cult shenanigans (which I don't think is much of a spoiler given, you know, the name of the book). I was really rocking with things until we hit the narrative speed bump that really slowed things down in the second half, but we do get things moving again towards the very end and into the climax.

Peaks and valleys notwithstanding, I found Luke to be a relatable protagonist because he was wrestling with not being able to reconnect with old friends after a hiatus apart and also recurring anger issues, both things I struggled with myself when I was younger. The main differences were that he was still going through this well into his mid-thirties instead of right after college, and he can drive a manual transmission vehicle, which I cannot.

My personal anecdotal evidence suggests that if you don't typically read horror, you're not gonna like this one. But if you do, give this a shot and just know that it's kinda two different vibes stitched together.