Meg: Primal Waters FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Eighteen years have passed since Angel, the prehistoric Carcharodon megalodon shark, broke free of the Tanaka Lagoon and returned to the depths of the Mariana Trench. Meanwhile, Jonas Taylor, the famed adventurer who captured the Meg shark, has become Jonas Taylor, middle-aged father of two, overwhelmed by mountains of bills and the daily strife of raising a family. But his life is about to change." "A Hollywood television producer wants Jonah to join his new survival series: Daredevils. For the next six weeks, two teams of crazy daredevils on a South Pacific voyage onboard a replica of a Spanish galleon and try to outperform one another in front of the cameras." "Jonas needs the money, and the job seems easy enough - doing color commentary. But behind the scenes, someone else is pulling the strings." Meanwhile, Terry Taylor, Jonas' wife, is asked to investigate hundreds of whale beachings off Vancouver Island...Angel's old stomping grounds. Could the once-captive seventy-four-foot-long megalodon shark have returned to West Coast waters? While Jonas and his teenage daughter find themselves caught up in the Daredevils action...and the galleon moves closer to the waters off the Mariana Trench...Jonas' family will again come face to face with the most dangerous creature ever to have stalked the Earth.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
The giant prehistoric shark, carcharadon Megalodon, that put Alten on bestseller lists with his debut novel, Meg (1997), and its follow-up, The Trench, returns in a messy, exuberant, potboiling action thriller. It's 18 years since Angel, spawn of the "meg" in Meg, chomped her way through many humans (as well as through most critics' sensibilities); her nemesis, Jonas Taylor, is now 63-and in financial trouble. For money and perhaps a retaste of youth, Jonas agrees to star in a top-rated reality series, Daredevils, unaware that a meg-lover who's envious of Jonas's fame plans to feed Jonas to a meg lured to the middle of the ocean. Meanwhile, Angel returns to her California hunting grounds and another meg creates havoc on the coast of Washington State. The narrative runs in overdrive from start to finish, as Alten munches on the reality show phenomenon, ocean ecology and family issues (tensions among Jonas, his kids and his wife), but all those are merely the fibers connecting the novel's powerful muscle: the shark attack scenes, which are numerous and exciting and, toward the end, intercut as frantically as an MTV video. This title probably won't sell as well as Alten's first two Meg novels, but the novelty of an aging action hero adds general interest, and the author's many devoted fans should devour it. Agent, Ken Atchity. (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
It's been 18 years since Jonas Taylor faced his own mortality and Angel, the huge, prehistoric killer shark Carcharodon megalodon, in The Trench. However, the menace still lurks deep in the sea. Faced with middle age, fading celebrity, and dwindling income, Jonas takes a job as color commentator for a reality TV show, Daredevils, and flies to the South Pacific with rebellious teenaged daughter Dani for a six-week production shoot. Of course, mayhem ensues, with repeated gory shark attacks instigated in part by the maniacal Maren, a scientist with a deadly grudge against Jonas. Interspersed with the killing sprees are details of Jonas's financial and family woes, which make the book a little more than just another killer-shark tale. Perfect for the beach with its slick writing and competent plot-just stay out of the water! Recommended for fans of the previous MEG tales and Peter Benchley's Jaws.-Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, IN Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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