Now this is a gem, it really is.
Remember the second Jaws movie? The first shark is long dead and a new one has arrived at amity island, and once again the town refuses to accept a shark until the deaths start stacking up.
Well, this is the novelization of the screen play that is a sequel to a movie based on another book... and if that doesn't sound confused enough, this book references the first novel written by Peter Benchley. And yet, not only does this book not suck, it actually works on the same level or even a higher one than the sequel film.
In my opinion Jaws 2 is a long-forgotten gem of cinema and when I saw this book on a forgotten, dusty back shelf in a nearby used book store, I was excited to enjoy a direct novelization... and on that score I was disappointed, and I'm very happy about it. The story only vaguely resembles the movie as it appeared on film, covering other details like a children/teen ragatta, a bit of military research and corruption, the mafia and a casino being made in a last-ditch effort to regain the popularity the town had before the first shark's rampage.
I won't ruin the plot of this book, in the event you can come accross it at some point, but I'll suffice by saying that the story might cover some similar scenes, but the differences between the book and the movie it claims to be based on are so great that it might as well be the written form of a fifth movie (ignoring the italian rip-off movie called jaws five in my mental list of films).
Definitely pick it up, and keep a look out for any of the author's other works. I asked some people knowledgeable about authors around that time, and they tell me he was pretty popular for these novelizations, so I wouldn't be surprised if you were able to find other gems like this out there at your own used book stores.
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