Book picks similar to
Cryptid Zoo by Gerry Griffiths


horror
science-fiction
fiction
monsters

Tether


Jeremy Robinson - 2019
    Blue, ethereal light pulses into the sky. A FaceTime call pulls him away from the view. It’s his wife, consumed in light, bidding him farewell. And then—the call ends. The explosion of light intensifies. The power goes out. Electronic devices stop working. In the dead of night, he races to his wife’s lab at the explosion’s core, but the building is missing. His wife is gone. All that remains is a test subject: Rain, a woman with no memory, whose eyes glow when she comes into contact with unseen forces, whose body lights up the night when monstrous nightmares descend on Boston, and whose creators will do anything to get her back. Pursued by a rogue government agency, Saul goes on the run with the only person who might be able to explain what happened to his wife. Rain might be able to reveal what kind of person Saul’s wife really was, and how to stop the otherworldly terrors wiping out cities. With TETHER, Jeremy Robinson, the #1 Audible and international bestselling author, returns to the literary genre he created—the kaiju thriller*—and turns it on its head, transporting the reader into the strange, and then beyond, into the supernatural. *“Kaiju” means “strange beast” in Japanese and refers to giant monsters like Godzilla, Gamera and Robinson’s creation, Nemesis.

Cavern of the Damned


Russell James - 2017
     NPS Ranger McKinley Stinson discovers a rancher’s prize bull has been butchered by an airborne killer, and tracks the blood trail back to the re-opened cavern. But as she’s about to arrest the trespassers, the unstable roof collapses, trapping all. Their only way out is at the cave system’s far end. But an eco-system of terrifying mega fauna stands between them and freedom. Death, double-crosses, and a slew of monstrous cave creatures take their toll as the group battles to what they pray is an exit. Will anyone survive this cavern of the damned?

The Black


Paul Elard Cooley - 2014
    But as the team starts drilling exploration well after exploration well in their race to claim the sweet crude, a deep rumbling beneath the ocean floor shakes them all to their core. Something has been living in the oil and it's about to give birth to the greatest threat humanity has ever seen.

Sea Raptor: A Deep Sea Thriller


John J. Rust - 2014
    Army Ranger, until an unfortunate incident forced him out of the service. He is soon hired by the Foundation for Undocumented Biological Investigation and given a new mission, to search for cryptids, creatures whose existence has not been proven by mainstream science. Teaming up with the daring and beautiful wildlife photographer Karen Thatcher, they must stop a sea monster's deadly rampage along the Jersey Shore. But that's not the only danger Rastun faces. A group of murderous animal smugglers also want the creature. Rastun must utilize every skill learned from years of fighting, otherwise, his first mission for the FUBI might very well be his last.

Monsters in Our Wake


J.H. Moncrieff - 2017
     Thousands of miles from the nearest human settlement, deep on the ocean floor, the creatures have lived for millennia. But when an oil drill bursts through their lair, Nøkken attacks, damaging the drilling ship’s engine, trapping the desperate crew. The longer the humans remain in Nøkken’s territory, struggling to repair their ailing ship, the more confrontations occur between the two species. When the death toll rises, the crew turns on each other, and marine geologist Flora Duchovney realizes the scariest monsters aren’t below the surface.

Stinger


Robert R. McCammon - 1988
    Inferno is a town in trouble, driven to the brink by racial tension, gang violence, and a collapsing economy. But things can always get worse, and they do so with astonishing speed when an unidentified spacecraft crash lands in the desert outside of town, followed by a second craft bearing the alien being who will soon be known as Stinger. Stinger is a kind of interstellar hunter on a mission he intends to complete, whatever the cost. He brings with him an endless array of technological marvels and an infinite capacity for destruction that threaten the existence of Inferno, its inhabitants, and the larger world beyond"--Dust jacket flap.

Hunter


James Byron Huggins - 1999
    Here, the author of "Cain" ("may be the thriller of the year" -- "BookPage), " unleashes a lightning-quick tale that pits a man born out of his time against the future's deadliest creation. Nathaniel Hunter could track anyone -- or anything -- on earth. Now the military desperately needs him for a mission that his ultrasensitive instincts tell him he should refuse. A beast is loose somewhere north of the Arctic Circle. It has already decimated a secret research facility and annihilated a squad of elite military guards. And the raging creature is headed south toward civilization, ready to wreak bloody devastation.It's a job that Hunter can't turn down, but he soon discovers that his prey is terror incarnate, a half-human abomination created by a renegade agency through a series of outlawed genetic experiments. It has man's cunning, a predator's savageness, and a prehistoric power that has transcended the ages. And even if Hunter survives its unrelenting hunger for human blood, he'll still have to confront the grim reality that it may have grown immortal.

To the Center of the Earth


Greig Beck - 2020
     She knows it’s real because 50 years ago, she and a team traveled there. And only she made it back. Today, caving specialist Mike Monroe leads a crew into the world’s deepest cave in the former Soviet Union. He’s following the path of a mad woman, and the words of an ancient Russian alchemist, that were the basis of the fantastical tale by Jules Verne. But what horrifying things he finds will tear at his sanity and change everything we know about evolution and the world, forever. In the tradition of Primordia, Greig Beck delivers another epic retelling of a classic story in an electrifying and terrifying adventure that transcends the imagination. “Down there, beyond the deepest caves, below the crust and the mantle, there is another world.”

Shadow Of The Abyss


Edward J. McFadden III - 2019
    An ancient creature that must feed its voracious hunger. A massive landslide on Grand Bahama Bank sends a thirty-foot wave traveling at 150MPH toward the east coast of Florida, and the tsunami drags in something horrible from the depths of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge rift valley. Now a monster roams Florida’s east coast and its shallows, searching for prey. Matthew “Splinter” Woods lives in Sailfish Haven. He’s a washed-out Navy SEAL who lives off the grid on his dilapidated boat and has withdrawn from society rather than face his demons. But when his ex-girlfriend, charter boat captain Lenah Brisbee, comes to him for help, Splinter gets drawn into a battle that pits him against the strongest enemy he’s ever faced as he races against time to find the monster before it turns the waters he loves blood red.

Crazy Eights


James Melzer - 2017
    An expert in all things extraordinary, she’s approached to lead the formation of a new team into the West Virginia wilderness to evaluate reports of a giant spider, but her quest for answers leads her to the discovery of an eight-legged monstrosity no one could have prepared for. Existing for eons beneath our earth, these aren’t your garden variety spiders. They’re bloodthirsty monsters that will rip apart anything—and anyone—in their path, and while a town fights to survive Emily and her team will have to do everything they can to beat back the terror before there’s a new species at the top of the food chain!

Primordial


David Wood - 2017
    When eccentric billionaire, Ellis Holloway, hires renegade marine biologist, Sam Aston, to investigate the legend of a monster in a remote Finnish lake, Aston envisions an easy paycheck and a chance to clear his gambling debts. But he gets much more. There is something terrible living beneath the dark waters of Lake Kaarme and it is hungry. As the death toll mounts, Aston faces superstitious locals, a power-hungry police chief, and a benefactor's descent into madness as he races to find the legendary beast of the lake.

Bane County: Forgotten Moon


J.R. Rice - 2016
    Nestled into the foothills of the National Wildlife Refuge, the small rural town of Silver Canyon seems idyllic to most; but a long-slumbering evil is about to reawaken. Seventeen-year-old Bryce McNeel is your average teenage boy, living on a cattle ranch with his grandparents. Well, average genius, but he prefers to keep that fact to himself, no one likes a know-it-all. When Bryce learns of a series of grisly deaths and mutilations that occurred decades earlier, his curiosity gets the better of him. Together with his cousin Jackson, Bryce sets out to learn more about the macabre event; but as they delve deeper into the history and legends of Bane County, the two boys are horrified by what they find. Unfortunately, history has a way of repeating itself. As friends and neighbors begin to go missing, or worse, they find themselves embroiled in a battle for their young lives.

Claw


Katie Berry - 2019
    Newly stationed to the area after her predecessor mysteriously disappears, Conservation Officer Christine Moon needs to calm the jangled nerves of the small mountain town.Awakened from ancient slumber, something stalks the swirling, grey mists that surround Lawless. A beast with a gnawing hunger that grows stronger by the minute -- its only thought, to satisfy its ravenous appetite.Rampant corruption at the highest level has targeted Christine to be the next mysterious disappearance. Now, she's in a fight for her life while trying to track and contain the creature threatening to decimate the local population.

Devour


Kurt Anderson - 2016
    A primordial creature frozen in time, it is the oldest, largest, most efficient predator that nature has ever produced. And it is ravenously hungry…  IT HUNTS Thirty-five miles off the Massachussetts coast, a small research ship is attacked. All but one of its crew is killed by the massive serpentine horror that rises from the sea. The creature likes this human prey. The chewy outer hide. The tender saltiness within. And it wants more…  IT FEEDS Responding to a distress signal, fishing-boat captain Brian Hawkins arrives in time to save the ship’s last survivor. But the nightmare is just beginning. A casino cruise ship carrying high-stakes passengers—and a top-secret cargo—becomes the creature’s bloodsoaked hunting ground. Desperate but determined, Hawkins goes after the biggest catch of the century.

Predator X


C.J. Waller - 2014
    Upon their arrival, they disappear without a trace.A second team, including sedimentologist Dr Megan Stoker, are ordered to seek out Alpha Team and report back their findings. But Alpha team are nowhere to be found – instead, they are faced with something unexpected in the depths.Something ancient. Something huge.Something dangerous.Predator X.