THE DEEP.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.NFINE/NFINE.No owner inscrptn,and no price- clip to dw/dj.Bright,crisp,clean,colour pictorial,wrap-around artwork by Gillian Hills,illustrated dw/dj; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present.Minimal bumping with reciprocal creasing to both head+foot of spine/backstrip.Top edge slightly aged and dust-soiled,fore-edges brighter and cleaner,but with some sporadic spotting/foxing; contents otherwise bright,tight and clean - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners - appears unread - apart from my own collation.Bright,clean,sharp-cornered,publisher's original pale blue+brown speckled cloth boards with bright,crisp,stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip and plain white feps with minimal,faint,off-set foxing from dw/dj's inner flaps.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,7-251pp [paginated] includes 11 chapters; plus [unpaginated],blank,half-title-title pages,dedication,author's note on last page and a blank to rear. 'The Deep' has all the drama and suspense that made Peter Benchley's first novel,'Jaws',a worldwide bestseller and the most successful in history (then 1976).The secret which unlocks the story lies on a coral reef off Bermuda.It's a harmless-looking ampoule - presumably from the medicine chest of the schooner Goliath which went down during World War Two.It is found by Gail and David Sanders,honeymooners who chose Bermuda for the diving they love.An agreeable underwater potter, a curious find .... and suddenly Gailand David are plunged headlong into a situation of appalling danger.It comes from Cloche,the sinister revolutionary whose political pull embraces the island's authorities and whose reputation as a 'bush' magician terrifes the poplace.To get his hands on what that ampoule represents,Cloche will stop at nothing.The Sanders' only ally against him is Romer Treece,diver and treasure-hunter extraordinaire,who is afraid of nothing in or out of water and has his own good reasons for thwarting Cloche.From him they learn that the 'Goliath' was not the reef's only victim,nor is her cargo its only secret. What follows is a race against time,a battle of wits against Cloche,and a daring challenge to the sea and the perils it conceals. Peter Benchley writes of the underwater world with breathtaking authority: the terrors that lurk at the edge of the diver's vision,the seductive promise of what may be hidden under the next lump of coral,or the next.And his touch is no less sure with the desperate human drama triggered by that small, apparently harmless object picked up off the sand.The innumerable admirers of 'Jaws' will expect a great deal from 'The Deep'.They will not be disappointed.
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