Lord of the Deep is thrilling family entertainment, especially on audio during a cross-country road trip. Thirteen year old Mikey is given the chance to work with his step-Dad on his charter fishing boat, and is determined to prove he is as hard a worker as a man. He has the opportunity to show his prowess to pretty, sixteen-year-old Allison, who is on a three-day charter with her boisterous father and his beer-drinking buddy. Mikey finesses multiple lines and makes split-second decisions for the safety of the boat and crew during a crisis caused by a temperamental eight-hundred pound marlin trying to commit hari kari. However, he learns on the job that his step-dad’s most difficult job on a charter is the gracious handling of obnoxious, and sometimes downright heinous, customers. Not all sharks are in the ocean.In quieter moments, though, he overcomes his shyness enough to keep Allison company, also part of his job, and he learns that he may not be the loser he thought he was. She is more impressed by the love he has for his tiny handicapped brother than of his expert fishing and boating skills. He realizes that his loving family is somewhat unique among society, and though confrontations and differences of opinion threaten their bond, their unit will hold. The chopped-off ending comes as a surprise, creating a greater opportunity for families to discuss what should happen next and why an author would choose this device than if everything had resolved tidily.
The book Lord of the Deep by Graham Salisbury is about a 13-year-old boy named Mikey Donovan. Mikey worked as a full-time deckhand on a very small fishing boat on Hawaii’s Kona coast. In the story, Mikey meets one of the employee’s of the boat’s daughter, Alison. She is very nice and he starts to like her more than a friend. But when a record-breaking large Marlin is caught, and the one who caught it (who is Mikey’s stepfather!) is threatened, so that he has say that someone else (the person threatening him) caught it. Mikey is told to not tell the truth. He said it is best to just keep it to himself. Mikey was mad at his stepfather for not telling the truth about who caught it for a while, and their relationship was hurt. But in the end, they talked and their bond was stronger than ever before.
