Peter Benchley - Jaws

It's out there in the water ... waiting. Nature's most relentless predator. It fears nothing. It attacks anything. It devours everything.
The seaside community is at it's mercy. A small-town police chief, a marine biologist, and a modern-day Ahab must try to stop it.

But they are only three men ... alone against the Great White Death.

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Who hasn't seen the movie at least once ? That the book is very different from the movie splatter does indeed surprise as it takes a few completely different turns than the movie does.
The story itself is pretty much the same:

Amity is a vacation community on Long Island that lives on the earnings taken in during the summer vacation season and it's tourism.
At the early summer days a girl is killed by a shark. The chief of police, Martin Brody, wants to close the beach but is pressured by higher locals and the selectmen to not do it. When more people die in a short amount of time he's still pressured to keep the beach open and after a short time of having them closed to open them again.
Ichthyologist Matt Hooper arrives in town to help with the search of the killer fish and for many days Chief Brody, Hooper and the venturous fisher Quint try to find the fish but it seems that the fish is the one that comes to them, taking first Hooper and then Quint. Brody faces the fish on the sinking boat and comes away ... . alive.

So much for the plot. But there is much more to mention which wasn't included in the movie. For example Ellen Brody's unhappiness with her social status and her short escape into an affair with Matt Hooper. The islands political structure and not to forget the fish hunt which is so different from the movie. I've been waiting for the famous sentence said by Brody "We need a bigger boat" but it never came. Instead Hooper didn't survive and got killed when he went down in the shark cage.
The ending of the book is completely different from the movie as well and I don't know which one I like more. Probably the movie ending because it has more of an impact but the book ending certainly explains more of the course the Brody family seems to have to go through in the future.

Overall, after today's standard the book probably wouldn't be such a success than it was in 1974. The characters are very unsympathetic with Brody being the most real.

Rating:
Visit Peter Benchley.

Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Fawcett (July 30, 1991)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0449219631
ISBN-13: 978-0449219638
Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches