Rating: 
Summary: Missed the mark
Review: I picked up a copy of this book as soon as it hit the shelves. I tore into it ravenously (being a Benchley fan from "Jaws" days), and found myself shaking my head at the unbelievable expectations the author wanted me to believe as the story-line unfolds. To me the whole book read like a great white shark meets a storm trooping Edward Scissorhands or, maybe, Freddie Kruegger.First of all, the author appears to be reaching deep for any kind of sympathy or group you can hope to pull into a story -- Nazis and those who hate them, reporters and those who hate them, even sharks. Sharks are, by the way, only peripheral characters in this book, maligned and mauled by the main creature/character. OK, I usually don't tell too much about what's in a book, but I want to save many of you who haven't read this book already. A deranged Nazi scientist develops an amphibious biological based on a human form (an ultimate amphibious warrior) that has metal teeth and claws, a ravenous appetite, and nasty disposition to match. No one in the book knows what to make of the remains they find scattered along the beach and, later, on shore. Only at the end of a predictable series of events do the "good guys" finally figure out what's up and put and end to the situation. I worked my way through the book in good order, mostly because I was on vacation at the time and had little else at hand to read. The book is a quick and, compared to JAWS, a shallow read. I wish I could recommend this book, but I cannot in good conscience do that. I can't imagine who in the world I would feel good recommending it to. It's too bad that not everything out there is a 5-star item. I gave it a couple of stars primarily because I enjoy stories with a marne setting. I hope these comments are helpful to you. Alan Holyoak
Rating:
Summary: Greenie Ranting
Review: Well I read the whole book, even though it wasn't exactly what I was hoping it would be based upon my remembrance of reading 'Jaws'. In the novel 'Jaws' we are enfolded into the lives of several people and how they deal with a monster shark terrorizing a small town dependent upon tourism for their livelihood. Here, in 'White Shark', we are subjected to Benchley's ranting and raving and preaching about environmental issues, we are given cardboard characters that are predictable and a monster that is unbelievable science fiction. I guess the author thought that if he called a book 'White Shark' we the readers wouldn't mind if he substituted an evil monster fish man created by Nazi's at the end of World War Two. Opps, I spoiled the surprise, however, in my defense, the subject comes up in the first chapter. There is a great white shark in the book, however, she plays a secondary role and doesn't eat anyone. Benchley, I think, when he wrote this book, was still feeling some guilt about presenting sharks as evil when he wrote 'Jaws', however, I don't think he chose a good vehicle to preach his greenie beliefs and I don't think resorting to a Nazi bad guy is the best way to make sure you present a monster that can be killed off without offending anyone. I'm not sure how to rate this book, it was interesting enough to finish reading, however, I don't know what to characterize it as, and find it hard to rate in a certain category, which is usually how I rate things, how they stack up against other similar books. Because I can't exactly call it average, I'm going to go with a two star, but it may be a little bit better than that to those that enjoy this type of work.
Rating: 
Summary: It's a bit goofy towards the end, but better than "JAWS"...
Review: Just a note on Peter Benchley: I bought "JAWS" by Peter Benchley after I heard how great it was. It wasn't. Nothing like the extraordinary film, it's perhaps the ONLY book I've ever read that is WORSE than the film adaptation. Why? Brody's wife, Ellen Brody, gets into an affair with Matt Hooper and it's ridiculous. Pointless. It really serves nothing to the plot, and the detail is sickening. Benchley must have been "excited" when he was reading it. (If you catch my drift.) The entire book was just pretty dumb. The movie is far superior. Much like "JAWS," Benchley's "Shark Trouble" is a bit stupid. But it's better than "JAWS" because it's more fun to read. I recommend this with hesitation.
Rating:
Summary: neat idea, but poorly executed
Review: This book tells the story of a marine biologist who studies great whites and his son. they are terrorized by an Nazi experiment gone free. Apparently this thing was trapped in a u-boat and released when the u-boat was excavated. The thing gets loose and swims to the Maryland coast. Both the Marine Biologist and his son find a romance. Boring. This is one thing I hate about books, they always seem to have a love connection, sometimes it helps, but other times it hurts like in this book. This book was extremely PREDICTABLE!! I did like how he went into some detail about observing the great white shark that the biologist is studying. But other than that the book pretty much sucked. This was my first and last Benchly book. Save you money and buy some other author. If you want a quick and boring book and have about a day to spend reading, then by all means read this book, but if you want to read it rent it at a library or borrow it from a friend who bought the book unknown to its boringness.
Rating: 
Summary: White Shark doesn't just bark, it bites
Review: At first glance, this book appears to be about a great white shark. This is not the case, however, as Benchley takes the reader back in time to when Germany's Third Reich is about to collapse at the end of WWII. A secret experiment German scientist's have been working on, which is nicknamed White Shark, is lost in the depths of the ocean as the U-Boat it is being transported on sinks.
Then Benchley brings the reader back to the present day where Simon Chase runs a small marine institute on a small island he bought after he and his wife divorced. His son, Max, has come to visit him, which has been rare over the years since the divorce. Simon is studying sharks with his employee, an indian named Tall Man, and much to their delight a pregnant great white shark has been hanging around. Simon and Tall Man are able to tag it and study it.
In the meantime, a whale and sea lion expert named Amanda arrives with her sea lions to study the passing Atlantic Humpback whales at Simon Chase's rather broke institute for a hefty 10,000 a month.
Strange, horrific things begin to happen around the area. People mysteriously disappear, a bird sanctuary is ravaged, one of Amanda's sea lions disappears, and the great white shark is injured. The only evidence left at each of these terrible scenes are two stainless steel teeth that resemble those of a sharks, and five slashes on the great white shark that look like those of a human hand with claws.
This book is suspenseful, engaging, and will keep you reading until the end. I liked it as much as I did Benchley's most famous book Jaws if not a little more. This is a good read for those who can suspend a little disbelief and especially good for those who like books that take place in or around a marine setting.
Rating:
Summary: Peter Benchley--White Shark (1995)
Review: Peter Benchley, the suspense master of the sea (author of "Jaws" and "Beast"), creates a new shark-filled tale with a twist. As a young man, scientist Simon Chase was too consumed with his work on sharks that he left wife and infant son Max to continue his rigorous studies of the sea. After developing the Osprey Island Marine Institute near Long Island's North Shore, he feels content with his work and realizes that he has failed as a father. Attempting to rectify the faults of his fatherhood, he spends much more time with his now pre-teen son and hopes to start the next chapter of his life as an excellent role model. While monitoring a sixteen-foot mammoth of a great white shark, he notices several claw and gash marks on the creature. Chase believes that something is deadly wrong, so he informs Dr. Amanda Macy of his problem. Macy leases the institute, using the resources to unravel the horrific truth--the menace is a monster produced by a demented Nazi scientist, which has hatched 50 years later and is wrecking havoc on Chase's community. "White Shark" is an intuitive, yet slightly absurd look at the horrors that can evolve from evil minds, but the true ludicrousness of the Nazi war weapon references is overshadowed by the excellent dialogue between father and son. "White Shark" struggles to incorporate all of the plot twists and ecologic jargon into a concise, cohesive unit; however, it triumphs as a heartfelt tale of how a father and son can come together in the most adverse situations (even if the attack of a fifty-year old shark-creature is that adverse situation). A good, fast-paced read--nothing more, nothing less. Fans of "Jaws" may want to check it out, otherwise stick with the classic.
Rating:
Summary: It's a bit goofy towards the end, but better than "JAWS"...
Review: Just a note on Peter Benchley: I bought "JAWS" by Peter Benchley after I heard how great it was. It wasn't. Nothing like the extraordinary film, it's perhaps the ONLY book I've ever read that is WORSE than the film adaptation. Why? Brody's wife, Ellen Brody, gets into an affair with Matt Hooper and it's ridiculous. Pointless. It really serves nothing to the plot, and the detail is sickening. Benchley must have been "excited" when he was reading it. (If you catch my drift.) The entire book was just pretty dumb. The movie is far superior. Much like "JAWS," Benchley's "Shark Trouble" is a bit stupid. But it's better than "JAWS" because it's more fun to read. I recommend this with hesitation.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun water thriller
Review: I like Peter Benchley. I love the water, and so I love reading books about the water. My favorite movie is Jaws, and I am into anything based around the ocean and its mystery. If you are like me you will enjoy this book. Benchley is great at building excitement and suspense. The characters are pretty strong and likable. The story flows along quickly. This is a good summer read. Nothing too deep here, but a fun ocean thriller.
Rating:
Summary: Not Quite A Great White...
Review: There's something lacking to this still intriguing tale of a monster gone haywire--even scaring the sharks away! Benchley spends a lot of time building up the scenarios--only giving you quick glimpses of the murky menace as it kills and kills, throwing tempting morsels of info about the heroes without offering a whole package...chumming for readers, I suppose. The main problem I had was that it was simply too short. It was as if the author had something else he'd rather be working on, so he quickly cut his line and tied the whole thing off. For all its cinematic buildup, the big dispatch-with-the-monster scene came too soon and wasn't satiating enough. Not bad, a good, quick, page-turner, but it could've been longer and better.
Rating:
Summary: toss this fish story back
Review: This started off as a great novel: a long-forgotten Nazi terror weapon, one of many that didn't make it in time to win the war, is unwittingly unleashed off the east coast of modern America. We don't even know what the weapon is - other than that it's alive in some way. When divers find its container, untouched since the U-Boat that had carried it had been sunk near the end of the war, it's brought out of suspended animation. And it begins to feed. Meanwhile, in one of those charming seaside towns that populate Peter Benchley novels, a brilliant but cash-strapped marine biologist begins getting clues that something hungrier than normal is prowling the waters of his town. Observing the same suspicious claws-marks on the remains of its victims, Simon Chase knows we're not dealing with your typical squaliform. What could it be? Actually, Benchley manages to keep that central point charmingly elusive, and I'm not going to spoil that mystery even as other reviewers have. It's clear that this creature - codenamed "White Shark" is no ordinary creature. However, it's the only really mysterious element of the book, and Benchley protects the idea rather than develop it. While Chase builds up clues, clueless landlubbers (anybody still alive after "Jaws" or "Beast") mysteriously vanish. Though he's smart, Chase won't solve the mystery before he meets a German veteran of the "White Shark" program who will of course explain everything to him. "White Shark" is one of those novels run by characters who are written as being brilliant while never amounting to be all that smart. The victims of course are all clueless morons who know nothing of the terrors of the deep, but merely have their instincts about it. (Chase is too smart to be scared, something he demonstrates in an incredible scene in which he swims alongside a real white shark - a scene which pretty much sapped this book of both its terror and plausibility. If Benchley feels that the hype of "Jaws" should be met with a cold and un-dramatic education into the misunderstood reality of predatory sharks, then he should write non-fiction books that don't capitalize on the same ignorance that guides his luckless victims). By the end, the story of "White Shark" comes ashore, and the novel seems less like a re-tread of "Jaws" than the first "Alien" movie. By then, I was ready to toss this fish-story back.
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