'Uncannily brilliant… a book to be swallowed whole' EVIE WYLD

‘Excellent… a profound portrait of a life dislocated by war and violence’ THE TIMES

Before there was Jaws, there was… QUINT

This powerful and brilliant literary novel takes a character who, through Peter Benchley’s novel and particularly Steven Spielberg’s film, has become etched in our cultural imagination: Quint, the taciturn and grizzled sea captain who survived the shark-ridden sinking of the USS Indianapolis only to meet his end in the maw of a Great White at the end of JAWS.

From the very first line, Quint’s voice is fresh, vivid and immediately transfixing. From his early seafaring days, via the life-altering events of 1945 to his arrival on Amity, this is a glorious literary picaresque with echoes of HemingwayFifteen years since I landed on Amity, an island full of rich folks adrift between the Hamptons and Montauk.

Got a business and a boat, got me a truck with my name and a pretty shark scratched on the door. Carved it myself. Bad job.

I got ghosts around me, lot of ghosts. Gotta put ‘em somewhere. Can’t drink ‘em all. Ain’t here for company, and I only got two stories for telling company anyways.

Thinking if I get them stories down, on paper mind, then that’s just between me and the ink.

You already know the end of his story: now find out where it all began. So much more than a fisherman, Quint is a survivor, a fighter, a man who has left three wives in his wake.

From his time as a young sailor facing the horrors of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, to a deadly night-long showdown with a frenzy of sharks years later, before he finally settles on the island of Amity: this extraordinary act of literary ventriloquism is a vivid and utterly compelling reimagining of the life of a truly iconic character – from the acclaimed author of THE DRAUGHTSMAN and THE ROAD TO RECKONING.