Reading Musick, a Virginia Institute of Marine Science professor, and McMillan (Titanic: Fortune and Fate) is like watching a nature documentary: you're consumed not so much by storytelling as by factoids: sharks have taste buds, have been around for more than 400 million years and can be warm-blooded. Shark stomachs have turned up "license plates, carcasses of dogs, birds, and horses, and sides of rotten beef jettisoned by cruise ships. The navy occasionally finds evidence of shark bites on its submarines." This comprehensive look at the much-feared creatures takes readers from Montana to Mexico to Malaysia, tracing the fish's development from ancient ur-shark to sea king. Musick and McMillan discuss fossil excavations and evolutionary biology, debunk the myth that shark cartilage is a cancer cure and show how the shark became a favorite media scapegoat, all while narrating their own research travels across the globe. These on-the-spot reports can seem somewhat gratuitous and, along with cheeky chapter titles like "The Carnivore Café" and "Sex, Sharks, and Videotape," they start to feel like a panicked—and unnecessary—attempt to compensate for the book's hard-science tilt. Nonetheless, Jaws
junkies will eat up the fascinating shark facts sprinkled liberally through the book, and armchair naturalists will enjoy both the evolutionary perspective and the authors' look at the environmental threats facing the shark, a victim of overfishing and "recreation." It seems that even the "consummate predator" is no match for human industry. (Sept.)
