Its appetite is ravenous. Its teeth scalpel-sharp. Its power unstoppable as it smashes the steel doors holding it in a Monterey Aquarium. For the first time, the captive twenty-ton Megalodon shark has tasted human blood, and it wants more. Now, it's feeding time.

On the other side of the world, in the silent depths of the ocean, lies the Mariana Trench, where the Megalodon has spawned since the dawn of the time. Paleo-biologist Jonas Taylor once dared to enter this perilous cavern. And he wears the painful scars of that deadly encounter. Now, as the body count rises and the horror of a monster's attack grips the California coast, Jonas must begin the hunt again.

But to do it means returning to the dark terror of the trench...where the MEG is waiting. Using himself as a bait, Jonas will enter the ultimate battle -- a fight to the death between man and beast in the darkest recesses of the ocean, and the fight for his sanity from the depths of his own tormented soul.

Steve Alten once again unleashes the power of the MEG in a new heart-stopping thriller. "The Trench" takes us into the zone of the unknown and the primal terror of what is "down there". Tense, realistic and action-filled, it will hold you in its grip until the last chilling page...