The shark that ate Tommy Shoalhaven.

David Hocking

Are you ready to enter the water?

“On a Spring morning of cloudless blue sky off Cottesloe beach, Western Australia, a teenage boy is killed by a great white shark. Tommy’s earthly business, however, is far from over – and so begins an oceanic odyssey of leviathan proportions for Tommy’s ghost, now cocooned within the shark’s body.”

Two years later, as another great white is suspected of a series of attacks along the same stretch of coastline, two employees of the local Fisheries Department, Will, a marine biologist and Gaff, his assistant, are quaffing home-made moonshine. Considering that one man is dead and three others are lucky to be alive they begin swapping theories as to why a giant shark is menacing Perth beach-goers...until Gaff has an epiphany that will drastically alter the shape of their future.

In a cottage dwarfed by eucalypts in one of Perth's inland suburbs a weather-worn woman with greying hair works quietly making costume jewellery, which she packs and despatches to internet customers. She doesn’t swim anymore but unknown to her she has a key role in the drama that is unfolding along the coast.

 Meanwhile, the shark, despite the strange force that is within it, has answered the ocean's call. It has travelled across two of the world’s great oceans, including the coasts of California and South Africa. Usually it was in control, but occasionally it was propelled by the force – which it recognised had been with it since it killed that skinny seal-thing, way back in what it and members of his ‘seam’ know of, as ‘the great shallows of the east’. 

Back on land, in Perth, Western Australia, Gaff and Will have a plan, but they need to action it quickly because the people of the city panic, conjuring up plan after plan to capture and kill the monster - and stay out of the sea. And they need some help...

Shocked by the number of shark attacks in WA waters – many causing death – David Hocking’s imagination kicked into gear and he has produced a well-written, page-turning yarn that has it all: pathos, spirituality, blood and guts and adventure in worlds rarely visited by man.

Are you ready to enter the water?

 

 

About the Author

David was born in Melbourne, 1968. He graduated from James Cook University, Townsville, in 1994, with a marine biology degree and, subsequently, worked on a myriad of research projects along the Great Barrier Reef, as well as the reef systems of northern and northwest WA. He discovered the written word, properly, while backpacking through Europe and eventually he gave up science, completely, although he never lost his love of the ocean, nor his fascination for sharks.

In 2001 he enrolled in Italian language school, Livorno, Italy, returning to Perth where he wrote his first novel, ‘My cat is purple. My cat is dead.' (A novel about a murderous Australian attending Italian school in Livorno - unpublished). Since then he has written the world's first 'name theory' book, 'Why shouldn't I call my son Clint?' (now a smart phone app called Name Guru) as well as 'I, Cott Dog', his first photographic effort. ‘The shark that ate Tommy Shoalhaven’ arrived after years contemplating the nature of the universe as it pertained to the ocean, humans and life in general, especially while he was on or under the water. David now lives in Noosa, Queensland.

Read more from David and his exploits here: www.davidhocking.blogspot.com

 

Click here to read about David's first release, 'Why Shouldn't I Call My Son Clint?'.