Although the trumpetings of jacket blurbs should not be taken too seriously there is one phrase that never fails to arouse the reviewer's suspicions: scientific accuracy. Rarely is this claim made for a scientifically accurate book and it is disappointing to find that The Shark is no exception. First in a series of studies on underwater life by Jacques Cousteau and his son [Philippe Cousteau], it is said by the publishers to set "an incredibly high standard for those that will follow", not least in its "scientific accuracy" and "whole mood of scientific enquiry".

What the reader actually receives is a series of anecdotes of a type now standard in shark books, and a series of quite preposterous "scientific" statements for which the term codswallop is the mildest warning that can be given to an unsuspecting public. Sharks are said to possess, inter alia, an "obscure millenary instinct...