Nessie making short work of a pair of lake divers

Client: New York Times Bestselling Author Steve Alten from 2002 to 2005

Location: West Palm Beach, Florida and Loch Ness itself in the Great Glenn of Northern Scotland.

Book: "The Loch." "The Loch" is a science fiction novel and Legal thriller by Steve Alten, and was first published in 2005.

Steve Alten wanted a super realistic natural history species identification for "Nessie," the Loch Ness Monster and her ilk. These eels were the lake monsters of Steve's "The Loch," as well as the biological origin for the North Atlantic to the Sargasso Sea US Navy sonar phenomena they code named as "The Bloop" in their reports to the Pentagon.

Beginning with a professor Brown back in the early 1900s and continuing with Doctor Roy Mackal and his team from MIT in the 1970s, I zeroed in on large, additional growth phases leading to a medieval French "Guiver" (Water Dragon) stage thick-bodied eel morph for a specific catadromous fish family which contained the North Atlantic common eel and the conger eels--the Anguilliforme eel fish family.

Genus Amia, the bowfin, a living fossil still hunting the waters of North America, was a staple in the local fossil beds of Scotland going back 100 million years. I included him because we have had one in the Arizona Museum of Natural History for over twenty years.

From https://www.stevealten.com/books/the-loch/ :

The Loch:
Loch Ness holds secrets, ancient and deadly. Does a monster inhabit its depths, or is it just myth? Why, after thousands of reported sightings and dozens of expeditions, is there still no hard evidence? Marine biologist Zachary Wallace knows, but the shock of his near-drowning as a child on Loch Ness have buried all memories of the incident.

Now, a near-death experience involving a giant squid attack on a minisub being intervened with by a giant "Bloop" eel suffered while on expedition in the Sargasso Sea has caused these long-forgotten memories to re-surface. Haunted by vivid night terrors, stricken by a sudden fear of the water, Zach finds he can no longer function as a scientist.

Unable to cope, his career all but over, he stumbles down a path of self-destruction…until he receives contact from his estranged father…a man he has not seen since his parents’ divorced and he left Scotland as a boy. Angus Wallace, a wily Highlander who never worked an honest day in his life, is on trial for murdering his business partner. Only Zachary can prove his innocence – if he is innocent, but to do so means confronting the nightmare that nearly killed him seventeen years earlier.

Incorporating the latest research and “new evidence,” that leads to real answers concerning the monster’s identity, best-selling author Steve Alten weaves a tale of horror about the most publicized and controversial creature ever to exist.