The press release for David Owen’s latest book describes it as a ‘thoroughly researched’ work by a shark ‘outsider’ that aims to ‘comprehensively overturn our negative and damaging perceptions of sharks’. I cannot claim expert knowledge of sharks, but personal experience makes me a suitable subject on which to measure the author’s effectiveness. When I was a child, one of my sisters was bitten in shallow water by a shark that had breached a netted beach in North Queensland. Although her injuries were not life-threatening, the resulting panic had a lasting effect: I rarely swim in the ocean, and have a healthy respect for sharks.