When readers first meet Tom Tennyson, he’s just a 14-year-old kid. He and his father have plans to climb the tallest mountain in the world and, if possible, kill the elusive abominable snowman. 

Like Holden Caulfield, Peter Parker and Hamlet, the mopey Prince of Denmark, Tom was an angsty boy—he hated his abusive father (for good reason) and he certainly didn’t want to be anywhere near the Himalayas. Said author Sam M. Phillips: “The mountains stood like sentinels between him and a manhood which felt elusive, something his father would not bestow upon him, not until he helped bring in the yeti and mount its head on the wall of their family home.”

Soon enough, Tom and his father (and their friendly Sherpa guides) came across the yeti. It was 10-feet tall and four times the bulk of a regular man. Its leathery face seemed almost human but with an overriding ape-like countenance. Up close, the beast’s eyes were keen and intelligent, yet piercing and feral. 

The encounter didn’t go well. Even though Himalayan legends tell us that the yeti is shy and nonconfrontational, this one was neither. This particular snowman was an aggressive and hungry hunter. Tom survived the attack and made it down the mountainside alive—but not before shooting the monster in the face with his father’s vintage Lee-Enfield rifle. 

Jump ahead 22 years and Tom was a 36-year-old billionaire (as measured in Australian currency). He was also a self-professed “cryptid collector.” In other words, he had spent a good chunk of his adult life collecting DNA samples of various cryptids, including the barghest hound and the aniwye, a skunk-like creature the size of a bear. And now, after traveling the world and the seven seas, he was back in the Himalayas for a second go-round with his yeti nemesis. 

The reunion between man and monster occurred almost immediately—even before the climbing party left camp. As it turned out, the yeti had a long memory and was patiently waiting for Tom to return to Mount Everest. Said the author: “The yeti bore down on him like an avalanche of crushing whiteness.”

This is when Cryptid Collector really gets nasty with lingering father and son baggage. Not only was Tom facing the same savage snow beast from before, but he was also fighting against his father’s toxic DNA. This type of internal/external struggle is  popular with writers, and I must say, Phillips uses it effectively to bring his novel to a roaring conclusion.  

[ Cryptid Collector / By Sam M. Phillips / First Printing: January 2025 / ISBN: 9781923165465 ]