Foolish question, very peripheral to the forum’s concerns – but I’d be grateful if anyone with relevant info, felt disposed kindly to indulge me.

I read a lot, but have the proverbial “mind like a sieve”, and quite often find self in the embarrassing situation of borrowing a book from the library, reading it, and then years after – interest piqued afresh -- being unable to recall either the title or the author’s name. Am being bothered by a case in point. It’s a novel, published certainly less than 20 years ago, originally in English, can’t remember whether author Brit or American. My interest in “Bigfootery” has waxed and waned over the years – read this thing, purely on an “entertainment” level, at a time when interest on the low side – I omitted at the time, to record pertinent details. Might perhaps wish to revisit it, but (as above…). Novel fairly silly, but not badly written, and fun if one likes fiction, and if this sort of stuff is one’s thing… premise involves Westerners visiting post-USSR-breakup Tadjikistan (generally acknowledged “mysterious big hairies” hot spot) in quest of said mysterious creatures. “Beasties” concerned, turn out to be relict Neanderthals – there are a “nice”, and a “nasty”, set of same, and as story develops, a war comes about between nice cryptids + humans, and nasty cryptids – the good guys win. (Aforesaid probably makes the work in question sound idiotic; but honestly, IMO if one reads it, it’s less silly than my poor descriptive attempt would suggest.)

My gratitude would be great, if anybody, like me sometimes relishing fiction and the lighter side of what this forum is about – and having the info which I failed to file away at the time – could help.

I've read that a couple of times, but don't remember if it was a library book or if I actually have it at home. My books are mostly packed away in boxes in the basement, but if nobody's given you an answer by next Wednesday (truly the next time I'd be able to search for it), I'll go through them and take a peek! I'd like to pull some of those old books out of there anyway.

Many thanks. It can be a b***h and a half, as I think you Americans say, to try to refer back, when you can remember neither the title nor the author. In those circumstances, search engines tend not to be able to help much!

Rebecca:

The book you're looking for is "Neanderthal" by John Darnton. It came out about ten years ago or so.

Thanks lots -- envisage a visit to my local library to see if they can obtain it.