While filming a mockumentary about purported mermaids in the Mariana trench, the Atargatis is overwhelmed by deadly creatures swarming up from the deep. Climbing over the deck rails, revealing mouths filled with sharp teeth, the humanoid aquatics tear the passengers apart, all while the cameras roll. The gruesome footage later recovered from the abandoned vessel is largely discounted as a hoax, but remains a driver of debate about the existence of mermaids.
For Tory Stewart, the loss of her sister aboard that doomed ship leads her to devote her life to marine studies in order to learn more about her sister's death. Seven years after the tragedy, Tory gets her chance when the network mounts a return expedition to the trench to search for the truth of what happened to the Atargatis. Tory joins a diverse team of scientists ready to plumb the depths for answers. But as hunters, media personalities and corporate players are added to the team, the real motives of the expedition become blurred. And when the sea bares its teeth, Tory and the crew are thrown into a frantically shifting mission. While everything else is coming apart, greed, revenge and grief coalesce to spark a violent descent into madness that will unnerve and enthrall even seasoned horror fans.
Author of the popular Newsflesh series, Mira Grant masterfully ratchets the tension up and down, holding readers firmly in her grip as the mysterious and the monstrous collide. Stirring up a chilling, claustrophobic undercurrent in the dark world of unexplored deeps, Grant keeps a firm grip on the wheel as the story turns its bow into rougher water. Outside the norm for this genre, fully developed and diverse female characters are at the fore of this title and anchor the odyssey as ideal adversaries of the threat below the surface. Fleshing out her near-future feast with fascinating marine science and modern cryptozoology, Grant's Into the Drowning Deep is a delicious dive for readers with an appetite for original oceanic horror.
