Unfortunately this book was not for me, it was a bit slower than I would like and it just didn't hold my attention. I am sure other people will love it!

A new favorite animal horror author to add to my list! I really liked the style of Mr. Cole’s writing and his focus on a species of shark that is rarely written about. The book is fast paced and thrilling, with plenty of peril and detail. A great summer read worthy of praise

This book gripped me from the first page. We start mid hurricane Deckard and also mid ocean rescue by the Coast Guard. I won't give away anymore details about that scene. The drama settles for a bit as we learn about the town of Merit Florida. Where we meet depressed and somewhat alcoholic police officer Leonard Riker. Even though Deckard has passed the Florida coast, he left a Thresher shark in the ocean by Merit. Merit is about to host a very large boating event. As large marine life starts washing ashore and people have gone missing, it is up to Riker, co=workers, Allison Metzler and Chief Crawford, marine biologists, Dr. Stafford and Robert Nash to figure out what is happening off the coast of their town. Can one "normal" Thresher shark being causing all the deaths? I will leave you with that thought! I am giving this a very solid 4 star review. I am tempted to go with 5, but there were some parts that were a tad slow, but that did not ruin any of this awesome read for me.

An interesting, deep sea adventure. You can tell that Michael Cole knows what he's talking about which definitely lends itself to an entertaining story. It's good fun and worthwhile read.

This book is incredibly detailed with an author who definitely has either done his research or just is very knowledgable in the area. The plot was gripping and thrilling and it doesn't actually seem too unbelievable like most shark novels. Some heartbreaking references on poaching but this is good because you feel sympathy for what would usually be a 'villain'.

Really enjoyable.

This book was AWESOME!!
Fast paced! Thrilling!! it was like a much better JAWS! I loved the characters, and the concept. It was quick action packed and a solid 5 STAR READ.

I've said in the past that I love a good disaster story, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that I also love a good monster story. For example, the first Sharknado was a ton of fun, even if the follow-ups tried way too hard.

Michael Cole's Thresher is also a shark story, but a much more fun (and almost believable) story. First off, go Google 'thresher shark' and check out just how freaky this shark is. Then picture one that ended up ingesting an experimental compound that increases its size and aggressive nature. Pretty scary.

Now, go to a small beach town where the grand sea festival is coming up. Take a big city hero cop who is trying to drink himself to death after a personal tragedy and his chief of police friend trying to save him from himself, mix in a rookie cop who has her own personal tragedies, a politician trying to make her reputation, a scientist trying to warn everyone, and top with a family of shark hunters brought in to stop the thresher shark before it can ruin the festival.

Yep, I'm sure everyone has a pretty good idea where this is going. I can see this as a movie on SyFy, no problem. It was a fun romp of a read, and I look forward to checking out some of his other sea monster books.

Huge fucking Thresher shark chomping the shit out of everything in sight and the people who have to stop it. I bloody love this book too!

I read this straight after I finished reading Creature from the Crevasse and loved it even more! The characters are so good, they're flawed but fun, the story was well done, the blood, gore, interactions between shark and people was interesting and the ending was perfect, it all worked so well together.

*Huge thanks to Michael Cole, BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for this copy which I chose to read and all opinions are my own*

Many thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Crossing for allowing me to read a copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

I loved this book! Think I found a new author!! If your a fan of the "B" type rated Sifi movies this will be a great choice for you. Engaging plot, interesting writing. Really liked the characters.
Giving it a 4 star.

Catching up on logging and reviewing Netgalley books and only leaving feedback on books that I suggest picking up. Thresher by Micheal Cole was a great adventure, one of the better shark themed novels that vie for attention around the time of Shark Week.

This was an exciting read about an enormous shark that is driven to kill, kill, kill! The characters were interesting and the story line was well done. I found myself wanting to get back to the book even when I was busy with other things. A little predictable but most definitely worth reading. Strongly recommend.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for a review copy. This is my honest opinion.

A shark lovers dream. Well written and engaging from the beginning. A perfect, page turning, suspenseful book.

Thankyou to NetGalley, BooksGoSocial and the author, Michael Cole, for the opportunity to read a digital copy of Thrashed in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
I found the storyline to be well written and intriguing. It kept me on the edge of my seat right until the end. Will definitely be reading more from this author. 3.5 stars.

In the aftermath of a hurricane, a series of strange events plague the coastal waters off Florida. People go into the water and never return. Corpses of killer whales drift ashore, ravaged from enormous bite marks. A fishing trawler is found adrift, with a mysterious gash in its hull.
Transferred to the coastal town of Merit, police officer Leonard Riker uncovers the horrible reality of an enormous Thresher shark lurking off the coast. Forty feet in length, it has taken a territorial claim to the waters near the town harbor. Armed with three-inch teeth, a scythe-like caudal fin, and unmatched aggression, the beast seeks to kill anything sharing the waters.

A good solid thriller/horror with good characters and a fast paced plot, the words were sometimes a bit scientifically monotonous but the author obviously knows his stuff.
I’m really into shark entertainment at the minute so this book was a hidden gem for me, the main characters, Riker and a young rookie called Metzler actually make a great team and as grumpy as Riker is, I found it hard to dislike him, they had good back stories, immersing me well into the story and I cared about other important characters too such as the scientist and his assistant, who were interesting and brave.
This novel was original in that it sometimes switched to the sharks point of view which was unexpected and added to the plot, if you like Jaws and other creature features, this book is one you’ll want to read.

When I first saw this book, I expected something close to Jaws. I loved Jaws and have always loved sharks. While this book is similar to Jaws, it is equally unique.

I love the fact that the author chose a shark that was naturally aggressive. He didn't create a new "rogue shark" theory. The way that he worked in the twists and reasoning behind his plot was amazing. I couldn't find any holes and didn't have any questions left unanswered.

The characters were well created and well rounded. Each had their own backstory that made them seem real. The ending was perfect. I think that if it ended any differently, I would have been upset.

Please, someone in the movie industry, get this book and make a movie. Just make sure to stick to the book because it is perfect!

WOW , what a story, this has everything I love in a horror story that deals with a sea monster, it was just what I needed to get past the book I read before this one, it's non stop reading that makes the hair stand up ,and you won't want to stop reading once you start, and it makes you feel like you never want to go in the ocean again after reading it, it also so you want can happen when Experiments go wrong. Plus I can see this as a movie if it's done right .Thanks Netgalley for letting me read and review it , can't wait to see what else this author comes up with.

Another creature feature novel feeding to the fire of portraying sharks as merciless killing machines, bent on destroying and devouring anything and everything in their paths.
Not much different from other thrillers featuring a cartilaginous antagonist - a huge apex predator arriving out of the blue in the seas surrounding a coastal town, unfortunate people becoming food for the formidable predator, some experts who figure out what is going on and try to stop it but ultimately meet a gruesome end and a macho hero who in the end eliminates the beast and saves the day.

Some things just naturally belong together: horses and carriages, swallows and summer, quiet seaside towns that need a lucrative tourist season and giant shark attacks.

The peaceful seaside town of Merit is about to host a sailing competition. There’s a lot of opportunity for profit, and the acting mayor has decreed that nothing must go wrong. Unfortunately, there’s something in the water.

A rookie cop gets partnered with an alcoholic veteran; a marine biologist makes the find of his career; an acting Mayor ignores the truth. And beneath the waves, something hunts. Something vast and merciless and hungry.

Thresher is a shark attack book, in the vein of Steve Alten’s Meg, and Peter Benchley’s Jaws (although Jaws isn’t really the same kind of book as all of its descendants). There’s a specific formula for these things, but it’s actually quite easy to get that formula wrong – to misunderstand why shark books are entertaining, the ideas they engage with, and the promises made to the reader. Michael Cole understand the formula – he understands what such stories need to do and how.

Thresher gets points for originality in its monster choice. The thresher shark uses a whip-like tail to stun its prey, and does not, in reality, attack humans. This one – grown to immense proportions – absolutely does attack humans, and the author’s focus on the tail helps make this book stand out from the legions of undifferentiated fictional Great Whites and Megalodons. I didn’t know thresher sharks existed before, and they are quite exciting.

I did struggle in places with the prose style. It’s overly descriptive and concrete, stating and clarifying information that should be implicit. Often, the subtext is already there, and then you get an explanation of it anyway, which clunks. Thresher needs the level of detail dialing back a bit, so that it relies more on subtlety.

The plot is a little too extensive. A few fewer twists and turns would have made for a tighter novel. There’s also the issue that, as you add complexity to what is – at its heart – a simple narrative, cracks start to appear. People act in unreasonable ways in order to add obstacles – the acting Mayor, for example, wields far greater power than she should be able to, just to throw up roadblocks in the way of the resolution.

This is a formulaic monster book. If you’re looking for shocking twists, this is not the place to find them. However, other than stylistic issues, I do recommend it – it does the formula well, and it has moments of greater originality than expected.

If you’re looking for an exciting and fast paced novel filled with police and a giant shark as well as government secrets, you’ve found your perfect match. “Thresher” is the newest deep sea creature novel by Michael Cole, and because of this book, I would love to check out his other deep sea thrillers. Not only does the violence kind of sneak up on you, but the characters are hilarious in ways you wouldn’t expect. Though deeply hurt by the world around them, they’re tough as nails and they’re ready to take on anything.

The book was a little hard to get into at the beginning, but once I was into it, I could see it play out like a movie in my head. After Hurricane Deckard strikes down, strange marine life are taken far from their homes. Even worse, some of them seem to be almost insane sizes, growing way past what they should be. The story follows one particularly aggressive shark, as well as two police officers, and two scientists. The point of view bounces around a lot, and it really gives you a chance to see the story from all angles, especially the people suffering from the shark’s attacks.

The main characters, though facing real problems like anxiety, depression, and alcoholism, are sort of cartoon like at times, but in the best way. They really make the book come alive. This book is a lot different than other’s that I’ve read lately, and I loved all the violence. You never expect it to actually happen, like it downplays it, and then all of the sudden it’s happened and it’s way worse than you would imagine it to be.

I loved that you got to see things from the shark’s point of view as well, because I feel like I really learned a lot about sharks, even if that wasn’t the point. For instance, did you know that if they stop swimming, they stop breathing? The story was way better than I expected it to be, and I didn’t think I would like it as much as I did. Overall, I think it would be the perfect summer read to scare you away from the beaches.

Thanks for reading!
(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

Even though it technically isn't shark week, it is very much feeling like shark week to me!  Firstly, I see the new movie The MEG! Secondly, I read this book Thresher. And then to top off my week it's a shark feeding frenzy in Australian politics right now! So it was a funny and fitting coincidence that I write this review this week!

Strange things are going on in the waters outside of Florida. People are missing, boats are capsized, and large sea creatures are turning up dead in the water. Seasoned cop Leonard Riker and rookie Metzler are sent to patrol the shore and soon discover that there is something terrifying in the water!

I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed this book. It was really well written and had an entertaining and layered story line with really likeable characters. I mean sure, its a book about a giant killer shark, so it is meant to be over the top with dramatic and often corny action scenes. But they were loads of fun! It was like reading a hollywood blockbuster. 

Some of the scenes were from the sharks perspective which really worked for me. I loved the explanations of the way the shark was behaving and the whole thing was a lot of fun. 

The classic, worn-out-cop working with the excited-rookie and all of their angry interactions and escapades were really enjoyable and I liked that they were actually quite complex characters. I also loved the bad guys (and girls)!

Another thing that I enjoyed about Thresher was that it wasn't a classic "giant natural creature of the deep" plot. It is much more complex than that and I thought it was quite clever. Plus it wasn't a great white or a megalodon! I loved that!

I only had a few issues with the book, and that was that at times it dragged on a bit, especially the shark action scenes, and also my copy was mostly in italics and that was really confusing and difficult to adjust to. Also, I like a bit of romance in my books, and there was NOTHING! Not even a hint of one from the two main characters, which I understood because of where the characters were in their lives, but still. Give me SOMETHING!!!

However, overall I found it to be a really enjoyable read!

Would I recommend Thresher?
If you are a fan of shark/monster/creature thrillers then you should enjoy this one!

*I received a copy of Thresher from the publisher Severed Press and BooksGoSocial via NetGalley to read and review.