Travel writers have to go to some lengths these days to come up with novel ideas for death-defying adventures to tempt their armchair travelling readers. Although we never learn why Edward Marriott decided to learn all he could about the bull shark, its hunters and its decline on Nicaragua's wild Atlantic coast, his fascination with his subject and the people he meets make his trek seem uncontrived. Despite facing natural dangers (man-eating sharks and mosquitos as big as thumbnails) and man-made ones (piratical fishermen and drug-smugglers in violent, lawless, poverty-stricken towns), Marriott never loses his ability to charm the locals into sharing their life stories and views on the way "Spaniards" (from Somoza to Ortega) have exploited the coastal people, their land and the ocean. And he never loses the ability to write humorously and compellingly about it all.