Close to Shore (Abridged): The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916 Audiobook

Quotes

• “Close to Shore not only throws an interesting light on a series of terrifying events, but also puts them in the perspective of an intriguing time. It makes for enlightening and sometimes pulse-pounding reading.”

  — Denver Post

• “Capuzzo’s account proves that truth can be scarier than fiction.”

  — Boston Herald

• “A powerful page-turner that will keep you out of the water for another year.”

  — People

• “A sepia-toned prewar crime story, imbued with atmosphere and detail.”

  — Newsday

• “A page-turner, extremely well researched and well written. As a social historian [Capuzzo] is especially good at selection and connecting the disparate information that makes this book something more than the Truth behind Jaws.”

  — Ottawa Citizen

• “A killer of a beach story. A riveting rendering of these events.”

  — Plain Dealer

• “Gripping. Truly exciting.”

  — Wisconsin Jamesville Gazette

• “Chillingly real. Capuzzo’s blend of Ragtime and Jaws is difficult to put down.”

  — Canadian Press

• “A chair gripper.”

  — Houston Chronicle

• “Gripping. Well-turned.”

  — St. Louis Post Dispatch

• “The best beach book of the year may be this thriller about the first shark attacks on American swimmers.”

  — Austin American-Statesman

• “Vivid and dramatic.”

  — Newark Star Ledger

• “A masterfully constructed saga of beauty and terror that will make you shiver…A well-researched and compelling read, with the pace of a suspense novel and the meat of a nonfiction profile of one of the sea’s most intriguing creatures.”

  — Winston-Salem Journal

• “Capuzzo’s account of the 1916 shark attacks on the Jersey shore recaptures the intense drama of the real events…Riveting doses of sheer terror…This is strong stuff.”

  — Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo

• “This monster story is dreadfully true…Books like this one just don’t come along very often.”

  — Michael Connelly

• “Close to Shore is a wonderful period piece of America on the cusp of the Roaring Twenties. But at the book’s heart is that most mysterious of all sea creatures—the great white—lurking, thinking, calculating, and then acting with its fifty triangular teeth and six tons of per square inch pressure. Read Capuzzo’s account of what happened that summer on the Jersey Shore, and then, I dare you, go back to the water.”

  — Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights

• “With an artistry reminiscent of Stephen Crane’s Whilomville Stories, Capuzzo chronicles a series of great white shark attacks on swimmers—the first in American history—along the New Jersey coast in the summer of 1916. Chapters that bring the period to life are interspersed with chapters on ichthyology; our modern knowledge of this consummately engineered predator only increases out appreciation of the terror and incredulity that the attacks unleashed. Capuzzo’s book is a portrait of the shark as much as of an era, and deserves a place among the adventure classics.”

  — New Yorker