Staff Picks (July): Carthago

When you hear the basic premise of Christophe Bec’s Carthago, it’s almost impossible not to think Jaws, Sharknado, Piranha 3D, or a dozen other names. The urge to make “you’re gonna need a bigger boat” jokes as you watch a massive Megalodon chomp through a whale is strong, but you quickly realize that this is not a retread of another shark-themed B-movie. Bec’s story has something that is lost in recent offerings that are “supposed to be dumb” and that is watching a writer actually take his own outlandish premise seriously. That gravitas is what separates Jaws from Sharknado, and it separates this book from those swimming in the same proverbial waters.

When an underwater drilling expedition unearths a prehistoric cave, the ancestor of the Great White Shark is unleashed. Admittedly, there are some Jaws tropes, you have your bearded Richard Dreyfuss analog and your legendary shark hunters, but the similarities stop there. This isn’t the story of a small town trying to keep the beaches open. Carthago crosses over into borderline X-Files territory with shady corporate cabals looking to cash in on the find of the century, mysterious billionaires with their own agendas, and a little girl having precognitive dreams about facing down the great maw of the Megalodon.

Bottom line, don’t judge Carthago by the giant 80-foot shark in the room, there is way more going on here and none of it is what you expect.

—Trevor Richardson

Publisher: Humanoids Item Code: JUL161676 Release Date: 9/28/16 SRP: $34.95