Close to Shore

During the summer before the United States entered World War I, when ocean swimming was just becoming popular and luxurious Jersey Shore resorts were thriving as a chic playland for the Gilded Age's new leisure class, Americans were abruptly introduced to the terror of sharks. In July of 1916 a lone great white left its usual deep ocean habitat and headed in the direction of the New Jersey shoreline. There, near the towns of Beach Haven and Spring Lake -- and, incredibly, a farming...
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During the summer before the United States entered World War I, when ocean swimming was just becoming popular and luxurious Jersey Shore resorts were thriving as a chic playland for the Gilded Age's new leisure class, Americans were abruptly introduced to the terror of sharks. In July of 1916 a lone great white left its usual deep ocean habitat and headed in the direction of the New Jersey shoreline. There, near the towns of Beach Haven and Spring Lake -- and, incredibly, a farming community eleven miles inland -- the most ferocious and unpredictable of predators began a deadly rampage: the first shark attacks on swimmers in U.S. history. For Americans celebrating an astoundingly prosperous and peaceful epoch, fueled by the wizardry of revolutionary inventions, the arrival of this violent predator symbolized the limits of mankind's power against nature.Interweaving a vivid portrait of the era and meticulously drawn characters, as well as chilling accounts of the shark's five attacks and thefrenzied hunt that ensued, Michael Capuzzo has created a nonfiction historical thriller with the texture of Ragtime and the tension of Jaws.