FBI agents Brian and Jenny work for a ring of evil, supernatural bigfoots embedded deep within the ranks of the Bureau. Having some Sasquatch blood himself, Brian has magical abilities too, but they’re too weak to protect him and Jenny. The Sarge, their boss, calls them in to clean up the latest rogue Bigfoot. A ’squatch codenamed IRONFOOT has abducted a two-year-old girl near Salt Fork State Park in Ohio. Brian and Jenny’s mission? Protect the conspiracy and bury the story by whatever means necessary. Return the girl safely? Not important, says the Sarge.
That’s not going to fly. Saving the girl while satisfying the Sarge’s orders looks tricky, especially with Brian’s feeble abilities as a mage—until a Bigfoot podcaster named Mitch appears on the scene. Mitch offers to train Brian in his magical powers so he can save the girl. If Brian and Jenny can nail this case, it may give them the evidence they need to expose the sasquatch conspiracy to the American public. Brian and Jenny set off across the wilderness of Salt Fork, tracking IRONFOOT and the kidnapped child. But even Mitch’s training won’t prepare them for the truth about the abduction—or what they find in the woods.
For the most part, this turned out quite fun and had a lot to like about it. The strong central setup, looking at the state of the agency as a cover for the creatures and looking at keeping their existence known only to those in the agency by keeping their activities a secret and covering everything up, makes this quite intriguing. The interplay with the agents who are tasked with trying to carry out the latest mission involving the work of a ravenous, rogue Bigfoot running wild in the area and abducting a young girl carries this along quite well, keeping the dynamics of their interplay intact from the other entries in the series with the minor squabbles they get into that remind the reader they're married the whole time. Dropping them into the situation and going around with the kind of conflicting sense of duty regarding the loyalty to the bureau or trying to make sure the public knows about the creatures by revealing their existence and keeping that outside of the agency's hands due to the belief that they're being spied on, creating the kind of story that works incredibly well.
On top of that, the majority of this one operates as the kind of investigative angle that leads to some enjoyable elements here. That there's an attempt at using their supernatural powers at several stages within the process adds some intrigue to this one as they try to stay on course tracking the missing girl deep into the wilderness helps to provide a solid layer to the usual police investigation storyline. This is what keeps the suspense building up the more in-depth this goes and the closer they get to the target, making this more than enough to overcome the issue here regarding the lack of information regarding how the actual magic and superpowers actually work. There's little here about this setup in how the creatures are also able to have these powers compared to the agents tracking them, as it makes only a few references to these ideas and never makes it much of a big deal when it works itself into the story at several points, yet this doesn't impact the book much and leaves this quite enjoyable overall.
4.5/5
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