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Ah, the continuing adventures of the 70 foot, 100 ton Megalodon shark, Angel, and the family that keep and fear her. Hell's Aquarium is book 4 in the MEG series and it starts with things not going well and ends with things considerably worse.


It has been near 30 years since Jonas Taylor first discovered that the once thought extinct Carcharadon Megalodon sharks have been living in the depths of the Marianas Trench. After 3 books worth of mayhem caused by the sharks they are now safely (HA!) ensconced in a custom built aquarium in San Diego. Trouble brews when Angel's (short for The Angel of Death) truly terrifying brood (Bella, Izzy, Mary Kate, and Ashley...no lie) start turning on each other.

To combat this Jonas decides to sell 2 of the pups (each one 15 foot long) to a Dubai prince for his upcoming Hell's Aquarium, the most advanced, largest sea enclosure, and future home of the scariest fishies in the history of the planet. Ever. As part of the deal his son David goes along to care for the sharks and train a team in the operation of a prototype submersible. Their mission is to go to the newly discovered Panthallasic Sea (hidden beneath the sea floor off the Philippines) to find the many, MANY prehistoric monsters that have made their home there for millenniums for display in the aquarium.

Meanwhile a go-gooder animal rights group, suffering from some sort of brain damage, seem to think that releasing the 30 foot Bella and Izzy into the wild is a good idea and begin sneakily trying to do just that. But Angel is growing restless in her enclosure and drastic measures are needed to control her, which results in Angel getting some unexpected drop ins for dinner.

This is all potboiler nonsense but makes for a hell of a fun read. Alten writes in the present tense which takes a bit to get used to but tends to make everything more suspenseful. It's an interesting trick that works for a thriller. The book gets bogged down in the over-long ending that introduces lots of creatures in a small time frame in a "that one was big, but THIS one is huge!" constant one-up manship that gets a little irritating. The primary issue I have with the book is the extremely sloppy epilogue that fails to wrap up anything but sets up book 5 (to be called Night Stalkers) and the supposed finale to the series.

I've been consistently surprised Alten has gotten as much mileage out of this silly series as he has so I'll happily go along for one last harrowing dive to the depths of the ocean when Night Stalkers comes out in a couple of years.

But I have about 100 unanswered questions I hope he bothers to address this time.

{Further books in the MEG series are: MEG, The Trench, and MEG: Primal Waters}

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC