Rip Tide

by Donald D. Cheatham

The bathers, sun-worshipers, and vacationers were all too busy to notice the twenty-six foot shadow and the sinister gray fin that lurked in the warm shore waters in search of prey

Genres: Horror

318 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1984

Reviews

[Nick Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

{1984} Rip Tide by Donald D Cheatham. Oh man, I don't even know where to start. How about that the main character's name is Stark. A book about a shark who's main character is named Stark. Stark is a super cop recently hired on at the small coastal Florida town of Surfside. His superior is a lady detective named Sallings. Can you believe it?! A woman. But don't worry she's super hot. In fact most of the other characters are women too but they likewise are super hot and Stark has it in mind to bang them all. Stark is appalled at all these women in the workforce. What IS this world coming to, he thinks. Kidding aside this was probably the most sexist book I've ever read. It's also written poorly or maybe its just the dialouge. Blatant homophobia too. And of course a sprinkle of racism. All from the cops. Ok all that sucks but was there anything good? Actually, yes. The shark mauls the shit out of people. We get some inner shark monologue. A part where shark and stark having a staring competition. And then weird again; TONS of boob descriptions of every woman in the book. A part where a twin brother and sister, who are 16 mind you, allude to incest before getting eaten by a shark. This book is like one part Letters to Hustler, one part Jaws (which is mentioned a few times), one part men's adventure ridiculousness and then the final act is the worst tropical storm EVER. Bus of senior citizens? Drowned. Lady with baby? Eaten by sharks as the ship is on fire. Almost everyone mentioned in this book is dead by the end. The body count is over 100,000. Some guy gets his skin ripped off from the hurricane winds. Stark lives. He just sits in his apartment and gets hammered during the storm thinking about all the pretty ladies in the world. Not even exaggerating. Our hero! As horrible as this was though, whenever it was the shark or the storm, it was on point. It was actually exciting. Too bad the writer didn't focus all of his energy on that instead of whatever the hell the rest of it was about.

[Anna Keaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind you, I read this as a teenager, but I loved it.

[Mark-on-Storygraph · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deliciously terrible Jaws knockoff. I read it for a book report in 6th grade.

[La Nécropolivre · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book came from a parallel universe where Tommy Wiseau would have directed Jaws.

[Echo Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

A giant tiger shark is ravaging the the town of Surfside. There is blood in the water, lots and lots of blood and body parts because this shark has an insatiable appetite.

For a shark book, I loved it, the attacks were chomping good … I wish the author would have maintained his focus on that instead of going off on a tangent at the end forgetting about poor Mr. Sharkie.

Keep in mind, this book was written in the 80’s so you are going to have a little mysogeny in there along with some horny people. Good grief. Everyone had sex on the brain and the main character wanted to bang any and all of the women he came across.

But, all that aside, if you love sharks, read this book and ignore all the other stuff.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ho hum. That pretty much defines this book. In broad strokes: the first two-thirds are a standard shark story, nothing overwhelming or underwhelming. The characters are shallow and may be defined by a single characteristic, like the man-whore or the wanna-be tough female cop. You don't really care about any of them. The last third of this book becomes a disaster story. A vicious hurricane hits the island and the island survives, lots of folks die - a disaster. After the disaster? The last paragraph of the book is that same shark from the first two-thirds of the book. So, what was the point? Don't even bother ending it? Like I said... Ho hum.