Snap

On a remote Canadian lake, a group of vacationing fishermen discover there is something monstrous lurking in the water. George Mapolis is a biology professor and cryptozoologist coping with the disintegration of his marriage and the suicide of a close friend. To regain his emotional equilibrium, he organizes a fishing retreat with a group of boyhood friends on Le Lac Perdu, the Lost Lake, in remotest Canada. On Day One of their trip, they catch a large snapping turtle and cook it over an open fire. This act inserts them into the middle of the lake’s food chain, with horrific results. One by one, members of the group begin to disappear. Soon it becomes clear to George that they have attracted the wrath of a gargantuan predator with a lust for vengeance and a preternatural sense of cunning. Beclouded by scientific curiosity and academic ambition, George concerns himself with documenting the phenomenon at the expense of seeing to the safety of his friends. He passes up the chance to warn them of the danger, the first in a series of moral compromises that expose him as a deeply flawed protagonist in the ensuing scenes of drama, suspense, action and horror. As the novel progresses, it delves ever deeper into the dark waters of George's own mind, with surprising results. If you can imagine Moby Dick combined with the Big Chill combined with The Shining, you still can’t imagine Snap.