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Victoria Stewart and her crew sail to the Mariana Trench in the hopes of discovering the fate of the Atargatis, which, along with its crew, including Victoria's sister, was lost at sea during the crew's attempt to film a mockumentary on ancient sea creatures of legend.
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant is a sci-fi horror tale about a research mission to discover what happened to the crew of a ship lost at sea. Seven years ago, the Atargatis set out to make a mockumentary about “real-life mermaids.” Six weeks later, the ship was found with no one aboard. It was, however, carrying footage that may have been what they were planning to shoot, or may have been proof that they had found the creatures they were planning to mock and that those creatures had killed them.
Now, the production company behind the ill-fated expedition is planning a follow-up. They approach Victoria “Tory” Stewart, marine biologist and sister to the television personality who was the primary face of the Atargatis tragedy, to be part of the crew. She can’t turn them down. The study of deep-sea sounds, seeking to find the creatures that killed her sister, have become her life’s work, and she is being labeled a crank because of it. She needs answers.
When the new expedition sets itself up over the Mariana Trench, the answers will come. And they will leave blood in the water. So much blood.
Into the Drowning Deep is a gruesome, fast-paced tale, and Mira Grant is a master at managing the tension. The novel has been out long enough to have fallen into the trap common for near-future science fiction, the “future” dates of the setting have come and gone, but if the reader thinks of it as “alternate recent history” the story doesn’t suffer a whit for it. Come for the horror. Stay for the thought put into the fictional biology that only serves to make the monsters feel all the more chilling and the incredibly varied characters. - Catherine, Cataloging Associate