The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks

The most riveting story about one of the most unappealing natural places on earth

What too few other reviewers have pointed out about this book, is how exceptionally well Susan Casey writes. It helps that her subject is fascinating, really compelling, but even with a fascinating subject the book wouldn't be half as good without Susan's witty and deft skill as a writer. Pg 159-160: "The Hunchback was a humongous Sister with a Quasimodo hump...her scale made the seal look like a bath toy...The great white was so big that she blocked out the light..beside the freighter I could make out the slime eel, a primitive creature with five hearts and no eyes that bores its way inside fish, devouring them from within...there was an albino sturgeon with ruby eyes, and a bioluminescent viperfish glowing like fire. Enormous jellies floated among them, trailing poisonous tentacles. As we looked down from the freighter's deck, the HUnchback ghosted by, orbiting like a stray moon." Susan gives an account of a place that very few people will ever see or step foot on, as no one but scientists are allowed land access on the Farallon islands. And when you read her account of the appalling human history on these islands, the murder and rampaging that humans have done, how we brought to the verge of extinction the population of fur seals and then common murres at the islands, as well as the use of the waters surrounding the Farallons for the dumping of barrels of nuclear waste, one is tempted to suggest we ban even scientists from touching these precious places so important to so many animals. Fortunately for the animals who live and breed there, the Farallons are a place very hostile to human habitation, as is made abundantly clear by Susan's accounts of the many discomforts she and her companion scientists endured to observe great white sharks and other animals on the islands. It really boggles my mind how anyone could endure such conditions for more than a few months in their life, the conditions are not only so uncomfortable, but also dangerous. A partial list of ...