We're not out of the water yet! In fact, we've got a full blown feeding frenzy on our hands, as author Thomas Helm throws in some more bloody chum with SHARK! UNPREDICTABLE KILLER OF THE SEA!
This is pre-Jaws sharking, with Helm plunging the murky depths of myth and midcentury neurosis - he tells one story of being aboard a sport fishing boat that came upon some friendly porpoises. Some he-men with him took it upon themselves to spear a curious visitor! Ultimately only one man could finish the deed, and afterwards Helm says his boasting fell on deaf ears. Elsewhere he describes the "diabolical" method of drano poisoning sharks. We haven't even gotten to post-Jaws supercharged shark mania and we can see the era's blunt, singleminded hatred of the natural world, the need to kill, maim, destroy!
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| Our author, Thomas Helm (1919-1993) |
Helm peppers his work with plenty of salty dog tales and sport fishing, but works hard against the anti-shark, anti-nature attitude, some of it via an appeal to the shark's place in human commerce similar to Captain Hal Scharp in Shark Safari. Helm's species guide section benefits from his drawings, putting it ahead of Captain Scharp's similar rundown.
The photo spread in the middle of the book is a fun mix of gruesome shark pics, other sea friends like octopus and porpoises, and Captain Bill Gray of the Miami Seaquarium posing with dead fish and only sometimes with a shirt.
Helm describes other killers of the deep like sawfish, swordfish, octopus, Portuguese man-of-war, stonefish, sea urchins, moray eels, and the deadly orca! Helms calls the orca the most dangerous animal in the sea and relates a tale from Zane Grey of seeing a pod of orcas slaughter porpoises until the water turned red. The humble stingray (or stingaree), meanwhile, is Helm's admitted least favorite sea killer, while manta rays are (of course) completely harmless and so undeserving of a bad reputation. The fearsome barracuda, meanwhile, gets his own chapter to himself!
Helm ends his book with a record of shark attacks in the USA, a form to report new attacks to the Smithsonian, and a brief bibliography:
Helm's acknowledgments and bibliography credit George A. Llano, who would later pen his own paperback shark attack!
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| Hardcover edition |
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| Sea serpent/monster text by Helm from 1962 |
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