LOCH

The Loch Ness Monster lives in this latest adventure by award-winning author Zindel (The Pigman and Me, 1992, etc.). The beast resides in small Lake Alban in Vermont with his wife and little monsters, trapped there by a man-made salmon grid that blocks the lake's opening back to the deep waters of Lake Champlain. The monster is no mythical creature here but a plesiosaur—a prehistoric cetacean that has survived until the present. Loch, a 15-year-old so nicknamed because he claimed to have seen the Loch Ness Monster (``Nessie'') ten years earlier in Scotland, lives with his father, Dr. Sam Perkins, and his younger sister, Zaidee, near the lake. Dr. Sam, a marine biologist, works for Anthony Cavenger, who spends fortunes seeking out monsters like Big Foot and Nessie. After reported sightings at Lake Alban, Cavenger and his pseudoscientific, paramilitary organization go to Vermont to investigate. They find the plesiosaurs—who have not devolved like the once fierce sturgeon, as an unlucky photographer and a local yokel discover the hard way. Ruthless Cavenger intends to take the animals alive, dead, or blown to bits. But Loch, Zaidee, and Cavenger's teenage daughter, Sarah, have discovered and befriended a young plesiosaur. They realize that the plesiosaurs are highly intelligent and sensitive creatures, and that it is up to them to save the magnificent beasts. Fast, furious, and masterful. (Fiction. 12+)