Jaws: The Revenge by Hank Searls

 

(pb; 1987: movie tie-in, based on Michael De Guzman’s screenplay)

From the back cover

“This time it’s personal.

“The lives of the Brody family have been devastated by a natural force.

“A force that glides, silent and unseen, beneath the ocean surface—ready to strike out with a relentless fury.

“To Ellen Brody it is evil incarnate. And it must be destroyed. Once and for all.

“Even if it costs Ellen her life.”

Review

Twelve years have passed since the events of Jaws. Martin Brody died a few years ago, a heart attack—his heart was weakened by the shock he was jolted by while electrocuting the great white shark ten years prior, in Jaws 2. Now Ellen, his wife, is a nervous wreck, especially when Sean, Ellen and Martin’s second, youngest son, goes out to remove an obstruction from the Amity harbor one December night. Then another great white, spawn of the previous two killer sharks, eats Sean, a police officer like his dad.

This spirals Ellen further into grief, fear, rage and more than a touch of craziness. She allows her eldest son Michael, a marine biologist (much to her dismay), to take her to the Whiskey Cay/Prince George Town areas in the Bahamas. The shark follows the tides (hello, El Niño) to where Ellen is—to the hysterical widower and bereft mother, it smacks of grim and terrifying destiny.

Searls’s writing, as it was with his Jaws 2 novel, is solid and cinematically visual. Unfortunately, this third book outing in the Jaws franchise* saddles the worthwhile author with a ridiculous set-up and an annoying lead protagonist (Ellen), undermining most of the thrills and other pleasures Revenge might’ve had. Revenge is also undercut by a subplot involving Papa Jacques (a voodoo priest who has a grudge against Michael Brody and a psychic link with the flesh-rending shark)—another ridiculous conceit, one that the tightly edited film (credit Michael Brown for that) eschews. The film version, keeping with franchise tradition, also cuts out the book’s Mafia B-storyline (this time it’s a subplot about pilot Hoagie Newcombe and Bahaman drug smugglers, particularly the murder-happy and over-the-top Rico Lomas).

Revenge’s climax, with its cross-cut editing (somewhat reflected in the movie), is especially well-written and gripping, despite Ellen’s hysteria, the shark’s voodoo connections, and Ellen/the film-version’s conceit that the shark followed her to the Bahamas—at least Searls tried to provide a reasonable rationale for why the shark did the latter, something the movie version barely bothered with.

If you’re looking for the bookish thrills of the two previous novels, skip Revenge, and pretend the story ended with Jaws 2.

The film version was released stateside on July 17, 1987.

 

(*There were four movies. Revenge’s film version was preceded by Jaws 3-D, 1983, which was not novelized.)

Jack's Return Home (a.k.a. Get Carter) by Ted Lewis

(pb; 1970: first book in the Jack Carter trilogy)

From the back cover

"Doncaster, and Jack Carter is home for a funeral - his brother's. Frank's car was found at the bottom of a cliff, with him inside. Jack thinks that Frank's death is suspicious, so he decides to talk to a few people. Frank was a mild man and did as he was told, but Jack's not a bit like that."


Review

Return is a nasty, violent and excellent revenge–mystery tale that raises the bar in the crime genre. Carter is amoral, reckless and unrelenting in his quest to solve the mystery of his estranged brother’s death, meaning everyone around him feels the fire of his rage. Carter’s rampage through his hometown is a sometimes chatty journey, one that is memorable, not for sensitive, PC-minded readers. Fans of the twenty-four-book Parker series by Richard Stark, a.k.a. Donald E. Westlake, might enjoy this.

Followed by Jack Carter's Law.

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The first film version, titled Get Carter, was released in the UK on March 10, 1971. It was released stateside on March 17, 1971. Mike Hodges directed and scripted the film.

Michael Caine played Jack Carter. Petra Markham played Doreen Carter.

Ian Hendry played Eric Paice. Britt Ekland played Anna. John Osborne played Cyril Kinnear. Tony Beckley played Peter the Dutchman. George Sewell played Con McCarty.

Geraldine Moffat, billed as Geraldine Moffatt, played Glenda. Dorothy White played Margaret. Rosemarie Dunham played Edna. Alun Armstrong played Keith. Bryan Mosley played Cliff Brumby. 

Glynn Edwards played Albert Swift. Bernard Hepton played Thorpe. Terence Rigby played Gerald Fletcher.

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The American remake, also titled  Get Carter, was released stateside on October 6, 2000. Stephen Kay directed the film, from a screenplay by Dave McKenna.

Sylvester Stallone played Jack Carter. Rachel Leigh Cook played Doreen. Miranda Richardson played Gloria. Rhona Mitra played Geraldine. 

John C. McGinley played Con McCarty. Alan Cumming played Jeremy Kinnear. Michael Caine, who played the lead role in the original film, played Cliff Brumby. Mickey Rourke played Cyrus Paice.

John Cassini played Thorpey. Mark Boone Junior, billed as Mark Boone Jr., played Jim Davis. An uncredited Gretchen Mol  played Audrey. An uncredited Tom Sizemore provided the voice of Les Fletcher. An uncredited Frank Stallone, brother of Sylvester, played "Man at Funeral".

The Holcroft Covenant by Robert Ludlum

(hb; 1978) 

 From the inside flap

"March, 1945. From all over war-devastated Europe, by plane and ship and submarine, are secretly dispatched shipments of precious cargo. Children. German children. To nations everywhere. These are die Sonnenkinder, children who will come of age and in the 1970s carry out their preordained mission -- the establishment of the Fourth Reich. Everywhere.

"Noel Holcroft, an American architect, is flown to Geneva and shown an extraordinary document drawn up by three men more than thirty years ago, each a member of the Third Reich's High Command -- one of them Noel's long-forgotten, natural father. The three men, appalled by the revealed horrors of the Nazi machine, have created a covenant, and executed a massive theft. The sum of $780,000,000.00 was stolen from the German coffers, and in atonement for Hitler's crimes these monies are to be used to aid the survivors and descendants of those trapped in the Holocaust. All that's necessary to release the funds is Holcroft's signature and the signature of the other two heirs. They must be found. 

 "But the document is a lie. The millions are to be the economic foundation of a vast and ruthless plan that will politically shape governments across the world, a plan so brilliantly conceived it cannot fail. The other heirs are waiting: they know the true intention. Noel does not. In signing the covenant, Holcroft will in effect be signing his own death warrant just as he is signing away the future of free people everywhere. Yet even when he finds out what the document really is, even when he discovers who is enemies are and what power lies in their hands, he determines to aid in the release of the funds, for ironically it is the only chance to stop the plan and the men who are determined to carry it out." 

 Review

Ludlum's trademark conspiratorial and labyrinthine plotting/twists/characterization, masterful bursts of violence and action, and reader-compelling prose made this near impossible to set down. Great, fast read despite its bulk. Worth owning, this. 

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The film version was released stateside on October 18, 1985. The Holcroft Covenant was directed by John Frankenheimer, who also voiced -- uncredited and unseen -- the character Bernie Sussman. The film was co-scripted by George Axelrod, Edward Anhalt and John Hopkins.

  Michael Caine played Noel Holcroft. Victoria Tennant played Helden von Tiebolt/Helden Tennyson. Anthony Andrews played Johann von Tiebolt/John Tennyson. Lilli Palmer played Althene Holcroft. Michael Lonsdale played Ernst Manfredi. Shane Rimmer played Lt. Miles. Bernard Hepton played Commander Leighton. Richard Münch, billed as Richard Munch, played Oberst. Mario Adorf played Erich Kessler/Jürgen Mass. Carl Rigg played Anthony Beaumont. Alexander Kerst played Gen. Heinrich Clausen. Michael Wolf played Gen. Erich Kessler. Hugo Bower played Gen. Wilhelm von Tiebolt. 

The Island by Peter Benchley

(hb; 1979) 

 From the inside flap

"How could hundreds of boats, carrying more than two thousand people, simply disappear? Why does no one know, or care to know? Blair Maynard, an editor at a weekly news magazine, becomes obsessed with finding out what's going on. . . "With his twelve-year-old son, Maynard pursues the story to remote archipelago southeast of the Bahamas. There, on the deceptively inviting waters of the tropics, Maynard and his son sail into as sinister a drama as has ever been played out on the sea. For the island harbors a violent and shocking secret -- and by discovering it, Maynard and his son are plunged into a nightmare struggle to survive." 

Review

 Gripping, mysterious, informative, blast-through-it suspense novel. More intense than The Deep, this too, reads like an island camp fireside-scary but thrilling caveat tale about the enchanting, treacherous ocean - as well as the sometimes treacherous and malleable nature of people. Much of what makes The Island resound with me is Maynard's intent, in the latter part of the book: he's trying to save his son, who seems to have gone violently native with these brutish, Christian-based(!) savages who have kidnapped them. (In The Deep, it was also a life-or-death situation for its protagonists, but the child in peril element of The Island raises the bizarre stakes.) Check this out. 

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The film version was released stateside on June 13, 1980. 

Michael Ritchie directed the film, from book author Peter Benchley's screenplay. 

 Michael Caine played Blair Maynard. Jeffrey Frank played Justin Maynard. David Warner played John David Nau. Frank Middlemass played Windsor. Colin Jeavons played Hizzoner. Angela Punch MacGregor played Beth.