"Bigfoot Nation: The History Of Sasquatch In North America"

According to Wikipedia, author David Hatcher Childress refers to himself as a "rogue archaeologist"; his newest book also identifies him as a "cryptozoology researcher" who has compiled accounts from all over the United States, and beyond, of a mysterious human-like creature.

Filled with photographs, some in color, "Bigfoot Nation: The History Of Sasquatch In North America" ($22 in paperback from AdventuresUnlimitedPress.com; also for Amazon Kindle) traces the first mentions back to the early 1800s in the Canadian Rockies, with reports of a "wild man of the woods."

Much later, in Bluff Creek, California, in 1958, a construction worker "noticed a very clear footprint in the mud along the side of the road." He called the maker of the print "bigfoot," and the name stuck.

For Childress, "bigfoot" is not a proper name, but a type, like "bear, cougar or unicorn," and the term is both singular and plural.

In 1969 there was an encounter in Oroville "where Ed Saville and Eldon Butler reported to the local newspaper that they had seen an 8-foot-tall bigfoot with greenish eyes that came to investigate their rabbit call one night."

In 1994, east of Quincy, two friends say around midnight they saw a creature "covered in hair with a rounded human-like head and no snout." A man named Tim Ford told officials in 1998 that "he and six of his friends saw a 9-foot-tall, yellow-eyed, man-like creature close to their campsite" in Hayfork. In 2006 a retired herbalist said she saw bigfoot near the Hoopa Indian Reservation and tried to talk with it, but no response. In 2017 "Claudia Ackley claims she and her daughters witnessed a sasquatch while hiking near Lake Arrowhead."

Childress acknowledges bigfoot hoaxes down through time, and his writing doesn't take itself too seriously, but he does write that "somewhere, right now, a bigfoot is lurking in the shadows, keeping his eye on those who encroach on his territory, and any nearby dumpsters. He knows his place in Bigfoot Nation and it is a place in the shadows. For him it's no big deal, the struggle for national sovereignty is over--except for the yelling and the screaming."

Murder mystery from a longtime Chicoan

A friend from Eagle, Idaho writes to alert me to a book by P.N. Ofinowicz, who received a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Chico State University and who “lived in Chico and worked for the Postal Service for twenty-five plus years. ... Most folk in town would know him as Nick.”

The book is “The Bigfoot Incident” ($9.99 in paperback from Paul N. Ofinowicz/Telemachus Press; also for Amazon Kindle) by Archer O’Brien with P.N. Ofinowicz. The book is billed as a memoir from now-retired Brenner County deputy O’Brien (with editorial work by Ofinowicz).

As O’Brien admits in the foreword, “There is no Brenner County in California, of course, but I will hint that the shape of the actual county is quite similar to that of Montana. And for those who might complain that this recollection resembles a novel rather than a police report, I can only protest that my personal life was inextricably entwined with the strands of the story. What is written here is as true as anything that has been written about Bigfoot.”

Most of the action takes place in and around Cove, “a small town in these remote Citadel Mountains of Northern California.” The “novel,” my friend writes, “recalls an event in which a honeymooning couple are killed and huge human-like footprints are discovered at the scene.”

The grisly deaths attract nosy reporters, and O’Brien also has his own issues to deal with, not least of which is an estranged girlfriend: “When I wanted to protect, it was interpreted as trying to control the people I care about. What was it Leigh said? That love meant ownership to me?”

It’s up to Deputy O’Brien to figure out just what (or who) killed the honeymooners, and to explain the series of gruesome deaths that came after. Mix in the ups and downs (mostly downs) of O’Brien’s love life with small town shenanigans from a well-drawn supporting cast, and what we have is a noir-ish soap opera murder mystery. It is a beautifully crafted and riveting read, with a dramatic moment of clarity at the end.