MEG

MEG
Steve Alten
Tsunami Books
ISBN: 0-9761659-1-0
Fiction, Thriller
Reviewed by Mayra Calvani

Years ago, on a top-secret mission in the Mariana Trench, Navy deep-sea pilot Jonas Taylor nearly lost his life, and saw a monster that has been haunting his dreams ever since. Terrified, he had brought the submersible to the surface too quickly, thus causing the death of two other men. Nobody believed his story of the Carcharodon megalodon—or Meg, a 70-foot, 60,000-pound great white shark thought extinct. His career ruined, he became the laughing stock among scientists.
Now, years later, something strange is happening in the Mariana Trench, and the Tanaka Institute believes Taylor is the right man to go to the depths once more and investigate. After much inner struggle, he accepts, seeing this as a possible opportunity to prove to the world that the Meg really exists. He plunges into the trench, and, without wanting to, releases the fearsome creature from its deep prison, creating a vortex of blood and destruction.
MEG is an excellently written thriller, one that will keep the reader turning those pages late into the night and feel glad that they’re not at the beach. The protagonists and secondary characters are well drawn and believable, and the author keeps a fast, adrenaline pumping pace all the way to the pulse-racing, outrageously original climax. MEG is like Jaws and Jurassic Park put together. The novel is soon to be a major motion picture, and if the film is as good as the book, it should be a box office success. Highly recommended.