Martin Groves- "Beasts Between the Rivers"

I grew up in rural Western Kentucky and I spent a lot of time in the Land Between the Lakes area.  I'm not a hunter myself, but I know my dad, uncles, cousins, and other friends spent a lot of time hunting, camping, and fishing down there.

Well, over the last year or so, I had heard on some of the more fringy podcasts that there had been some strange sightings there.

So I was very interested to check out Martin Groves books that came out recently about strange happenings at LBL.

First off, each of the books is worth picking up for their spectacular covers alone!  Very well done artwork by Tony Merkel.

The first book, simply titled "Beasts Between the Rivers" is Martin Groves' personal telling about his and a friend experiencing some weird things while turkey hunting at Land Between the Lakes.  Things are thrown at them, they see what might be a man hiding in a ghillie suit and they are eventually attacked by "Dogmen".  There is more....

Martin has been involved in law enforcement for decades, and his story is very believable.  As he describes his experience, well, it sounds like a very traumatic thing.  It makes sense that someone who went through that would tell it the way Groves does.  He describes the sounds and fear vividly.  He also talks about the confusion he went through as he first saw the monsters.

His friend with him that night experiences even more dramatic stressors that would affect him forever.

Martin also hears about the death of another hunter that night- that is mostly brushed off by rangers.

The second book, "Beasts Between the Rivers:  A Trace of Death" is Groves' book about his own research involving strange sightings at Land Between the Lakes after having his own- he asks around and finds many other people with similar stories.  Martin gives some more details about his own mid 90s experience from the first book, AND the author has another weird experience himself close to his first encounter, this time in 2022.  This one is even more strange!

Most of the reports in the second book are similar, and many witnesses describe a creature like the ones Martin saw, though there are a couple of stories of the traditional Bigfoot type.

A book like this does cover common ground when it comes to mysterious creatures- like cover ups (a ranger even opens up to the author about some things he saw).  Several witnesses say they were encouraged to forget about this event, or they were told bears or coyotes were responsible.

Even if you are a skeptic, but enjoy a good scary read, the first book especially could satisfy that need.  Again, the author is very believable, and writes his book in a casual way.  You feel like you are listening to a pleasant local telling you about his horrific adventure.