What Lurks Beneath

What a remarkable read!! I truly enjoyed reading my first book by Ryan Lockwood and am looking forward to more of his stories. This spooky tale of an oceanographic anomaly was truly interesting, and I especially enjoyed the creature's POV bring incorporated into the storyline. I hadn't enjoyed that since reading "Jaws" many, many years ago! I highly recommend this book and hope you enjoy it, as well.

Just the usual fun horror read that includes a giant octopus terrorizing a very nice resort in the Bahamas. I’ve never wanted to go to the Bahamas, but these blue holes got me interested.

This novel starts with a bang as two divers get surprised by and eaten by a giant octopus. It’s a very well-crafted and exciting scene. Unfortunately, that was the last bit of excitement for quite a while as Lockwood transitions into super-slow-motion for much of the rest of the novel. Things simply do not happen. What we get instead is the heroine worrying quite a lot about the state of her relationship with her boyfriend and heading off to the Bahamas to look for a cephalopod which she somehow doesn’t connect with the death of four people—two of them the divers whose camera tells her that the cephalopod exists. It just didn’t make any sense.In the final analysis the tiny bit of information about real octopi that Lockwood gives us didn’t justify reading this book. Perhaps if Lockwood had cut out half the prose and thrown out the touch of mysticism which is supposed to explain why our heroine isn’t killed by the giant octopus (and it really is huge) this would have been a good book.

Carrying on the undersea terror theme from his novel Below, Ryan Lockwood surpasses his earlier work and gives us the best fictional treatment so far of the lusca, the giant octopus of the Bahamas. In Lockwood's hands, good characters, great settings, believable science, realistic gadgets (ok, I wasn't sure where the last gadget we see gets adequate power), and island folklore come together to create a memorable tale cryptozoologists and horror aficionados will savor. Lockwood's oceanographer Valerie Martell cites lingering doubt about the 1896 St Augustine carcass and other "globsters" as she explores the famous "blue holes" with troubled diver Will Sturman and an ad hoc team trying to solve recent disappearances near a new oceanside resort and track down what she suspects is a new species of cephalopod. (She will, of course, learn that there's such a thing as being TOO right...) . Lockwood's characters are all good: almost everyone has a secret or a tragedy, but most also have a redemptive side that comes out when human lives are at stake. (Points off for referring to the enemy in Iraq as the Taliban: when you do as much research as Lockwood clearly has, there's no excuse for putting someone in the wrong war). The major plot turns are generally not surprises: there's a standard structure for this kind of tale, and Lockwood doesn't vary it much. However, he does it a lot better than most writers, and, most important, we're taking the ride with people we care about. Much more than a "monster" tale, Lurks offers a multifaceted story that makes for one of the best recent cryptofiction novels. So plunge into the depths.. wait, did that coral just move?- Matt Bille, author, The Dolmen (Wolfsinger, 2014)www.mattwriter.com

Although not expressly stated, this a sequel to Lockwood's previous book Below. Even though this is a stand alone book, the characters from Below are once again the protagonists, so reading that first will give you a greater understanding of their thoughts and explain some of their actions a little better.I picked this up since I really enjoyed Below, and I'm always up for any kind of novel involving deep sea attacks by unknown creatures. Unlike the majority of reviews I've seen on here, this really seemed like a weaker novel then it's predecessor. The writing may have improved, but the flow of the story just wasn't as smooth as I would like. As with Below, there are also several chapters done from the POV of the creature, which after a while get a little repetitive. I get it, I mean what else do these things think about besides food? Probably not much so it's hard to see how else it could be done, but after the first two of these POV sections, I found myself skipping pages because the same thing happens - it senses some kind of vibration in the water, thinks it's either prey (lost count of how many times that word was used) or a threat and goes off to find it. Below also suffered from this, and maybe if I hadn't read them back to back it wouldn't bother me so much, but I don't think these kinds of books need the creature's POV because there's no need to justify their actions. This adds unnecessary filler. In any case, this was still a fun read

Decent plot, reasonable characters, moves along at a nice pace. However, I didn't feel the creature was menacing enough and the instances where it attacked someone were not particularly terrifying. There were one or two moments where I almost felt sympathy for it but this aspect was never sufficiently developed. Would I re-read this book again at a later date? Unlikely.

Very much enjoyed the 2be book, never boring, always keeps you interested.Defiantly recommend will be adding this to my favourite list.Thank you for a good adventure

Can't wait for the next one terrific

Ryan Lockwoods Roman hat ganz klar Peter Benchleys "Weißen Hai" zum Vorbild, gemixt mit einem Schuß "Jurassic Park": ein wissenschaftlich noch nicht erforschtes Monster (oder eine Mutation?) dezimiert die Besucher eines luxuriösen Küstenressorts, bis einige Unentwegte den Kampf aufnehmen.Neben dem obligatorischen Öko-Zeigefinger (machen riesige Aquarien in Küstennähe wirklich Sinn?) spielen alte US Army-Seilschaften im Geschehen ebenso eine Rolle wie der notorisch kaputte Charakter, der seine zweite Chance erhält. Auch hier nichts Neues, aber das ist ja auch nicht das Ziel des Autors, schließlich soll der Roman unterhalten-und das tut er, von der ersten bis zur letzten Seite.

This was another good read from Ryan Lockwood and it continued on nicely from "Below". The characters are believable and the story keeps you on the edge of your seat at times. A great summer read.