This modern pirate yarn has all the makings of a great true adventure tale and is also an exploration of the ways our culinary tastes have all manner of unintended consequences for the world around us.
Hooked is a story about the poaching of the Patagonian toothfish (known to gourmands as Chilean Sea Bass) and is built around the pursuit of the illegal fishing vessel Viarsa by an Australian patrol boat, Southern Supporter, in one of the longest pursuits in maritime history.
Author G. Bruce Knecht chronicles how an obscure fish merchant in California "discovered" and renamed the fish, kicking off a worldwide craze for a fish no one had ever heard of - and everyone had to have. And with demand exploding, priates were only too happy to satisfy our taste for Chilean Sea Bass.
Knecht - whose previous book The Proving Ground was hailed by Walter Cronkite as "a sailing masterpiece...a tale more thrilling than fiction"—captivates readers by deftly shifting among the story's nail-biting The perilous chase at sea through frenzied winds, punishing waves, and an obstacle course of icebergs; the high-stakes environmental battle and courtroom drama; and the competitive battle among the world's restaurants to serve the perfect, flaky, white-fleshed fish.
From the world's most treacherous waters to its most fabulous kitchens, Hooked is at once a thrilling tale and a revelatory popular history that will appeal to a diverse group of readers. Think Kitchen Confidential meets The Hungry Ocean.
G. Bruce Knecht is a former senior writer and foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Author of GRAND AMBITION: An Extraordinary Yacht, the People Who Built It, and the Millionaire Who Can't Really Afford It; THE PROVING GROUND: The Inside Story of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race; and HOOKED: Pirates, Poaching and the Perfect Fish, he has also written for The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian and Conde Nast Traveler. An avid sailor, Knecht raced across the Atlantic in 2005 on the yacht that broke the 100-year-old transatlantic race record. He lives in New York City.