Below is an excerpt from the first chapter of Peter Benchley's
Jaws. See how it grabs you [oh!-ed.]
OH! Man, gets you into the story pretty quickly... This 1974 tale of a Cape Cod island was changed slightly for the movie (the humans are more flawed, slightly different ending) but still, pretty high test stuff for beach reading. Not as easy as I thought to find a copy around, you might even have to go to the library to get it...