Fiction:White Shark

When a Connecticut shore community is threatened by a malevolent and lethal creature called White Shark, it is up to oceanic scientist Simon Chase to stop the reign of terror. By the author of Jaws. 200,000 first printing. $200,000 ad/promo. Lit Guild Main.

Benchley's (Jaws, 1974) latest chiller is a briskly entertaining, albeit predictable yarn set in his familiar literary spawning grounds. Dead animals and the occasional part of a dead person can be found floating near Simon Chase's oceanography lab off the Connecticut coast. Initially, Chase, his sidekicks--his son Max and Tall Man, a lanky Native American--and we clever readers familiar with Benchley's oeuvre believe this carnage to be the work of a shark or some other sea monster. But the title turns out to be something of a red herring. The real culprit, a seven-foot-tall aquatic humanoid with stainless steel teeth and claws, is the result of Nazi genetic experiments during WW II and is known as ``Der Weisse Hai''--and you don't need to speak German to know what that translates as. Anyway, after the submarine carrying it to an SS hideout in Argentina is destroyed in the heart-pounding prologue, the creature lies dormant for a half-century until some unlucky divers let it out of its cryogenic crypt. Once freed, ``Whitey'' gets in touch with his feelings and rediscovers his true mission in life: to hunt and kill. Peripheral characters pop up, die, and exit. Meanwhile, Chase is busy preparing his lab for Amanda Mays, a visiting marine biologist who comes to track and film whales, using cameras mounted on trained sea lions. Chase and Mays know something bad is out there after seeing footage of the creature killing one of the sea lions. Their suspicions are confirmed when retired Nazi scientist Jacob Franks arrives to give the lowdown on the monster who, by this time, has come aground to hunt more challenging prey, thereby setting up a gory and thrilling climax. The story's sum effect is hampered by foreshadowing of the ``fin-sticking-outta-the-water'' variety. Benchley's still drifting with the same current he navigated over two decades ago. (Literary Guild main selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

YA-YAs whose tastes run to monsters and man eaters will enjoy this tale of a Nazi plot gone awry. Near the end of World War II, a German scientist and his bizarre creation are smuggled out of Europe on a submarine. An accident destroys all but the creature in its protective box; the story then fast-forwards to contemporary New England. Simon Chase, marine biologist, is attempting to keep his tiny marine institute solvent, raise his young son alone, and continue his research. He is among the first to notice the effects of an unidentifiable predator in the local waters that consumes humans, sea birds, dolphins, and sharks, leaving evidence of metal teeth and razor-like slashes on its victims. Into this chilling scene comes Dr. Amanda Macy and her trained sea lions to do research on whales. With her financial and technical support, Chase can continue his own work, but the growing threat from the monster forces them to direct their attention toward it. After a series of grisly events, they meet a Jewish survivor of Nazi medical experiments; from him they learn that they are tracking Heinrich Guenther, a half-human, amphibious warrior programmed to be a relentless killing machine. Benchley provides a clever, tense, and explosive ending to this tale of science run amok. Evil is satisfyingly vanquished, and the hero gets his institute and an engaging new partner to boot. An action-filled novel that's perfect for poolside reading.
Carolyn E. Gecan, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County,
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

We never thought it was really safe to go back in the water, and Benchley's new eco-thriller exploits the fear he engendered in Jaws . Here the menace is a creature spawned by a demented Nazi scientist, which has hatched 50 years later in a quiet Atlantic fishing community. Simon Chase has dropped his society wife and infant son, Max, to finish school and start the Osprey Island Marine Institute near Long Island's North Shore. Shark studies are his speciality. Chase fears the responsibilities of fatherhood, but when Max, now 12, visits, the two get on famously and soon Max has the run of the institute. Then, a crew tracking a pregnant Great White named Jaws spot a porpoise with a claw gash in its tail and see massive kills of sea life; when they then observe the same claw marks on Jaws herself, Chase knows "there's something out there." Enter Dr. Amanda Macy, who studies whales using sea lions with strapped-on video cameras. Macy leases the institute, both solving Chase's money woes and making first contact with the unknown menace. Soon Macy's camera gets a shot of a steel-clawed hand grappling with a sea lion. After additional bloody encounters at sea, the beast comes ashore, eventually to threaten Amanda and Max. Benchley's writing is fast-paced, and he alternates the tension with poignant family scenes and ample amounts of marine ecology. Literary Guild main selection; major ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Once more exploiting the territory and plot that made his fortune in Jaws ( LJ 3/15/74), Benchley gives us a grotesque beast--this time human-made--who lurks in the ocean and kills things. A horrid leftover from a long-ago war, the monster leaves the bodies of his victims with trademark slashes that attract the attention of Simon Chase, founder and chief scientist of the Osprey Island Marine Institute. Chase, who studies and tries to protect sharks, shares danger with his buddy Tall Man and his 12-year-old son Max. In an ecologically insensitive subplot, he also works with Dr. Amanda Macy, who uses trained sea lions harnessed with videocameras to photograph whales in their natural habitat. The best that can be said for this tired work is that the marine animals and the details of shipboard life are appealingly portrayed. Wait for the movie.
- Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Computer Support Svcs., Ridgecrest, Cal.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Doggone it! As the title of his new thriller intimates, Jaws' author hasn't exactly learned any new tricks. On the other hand, the new tome, unlike Beast (1991), isn't just a Jaws analogue with some other aquatic munching machine (in Beast, a giant squid) standing in for a great white chomper. This time, evil science meets the terrors of the deep. Seems a sadistic but brilliant Nazi scientist did the Frankenstein thing--albeit starting with a whole, living body rather than lifeless scraps--and created a superkiller able to breath in water as well as air. Prevented from unleashing it by the Reich's fall, he loads it in a U-boat that sinks in an Atlantic trench. Some 50 years later, the wreck's discovered, and the thing gets loose. To tell the rest of the plot is unnecessary, and so perhaps is revealing that the monster-fighters include intrepid researchers, precocious kids, a big strong exotic guy (a Pequot Indian), and a Nazi-hunting Holocaust survivor, while victims include divers, dumb teenagers, and lovable sea lions. As in Beast, Benchley also relays bits of natural history and environmental concern, before he and we readers get caught up in his latest soggy suspenser's action. Ray Olson