Grave Descend

Published in 1970 under the name John Lange, a pseudonym of Michael Crichton, this deep-sea thriller was written while Crichton was a student at Harvard Medical School. It returns to print after more than thirty years. Its protagonist, James McGregor, is a 39-year-old diver who has spent years taking grim salvage work in New York and Miami before settling in Jamaica.

McGregor's luck seems to change when he is offered a well-paid job examining a luxury yacht that has mysteriously gone down off the Jamaican coast. As he digs into the sinking and the yacht's secretive owner, he starts to suspect that the job is a trap in an elaborate swindle. The scheme involves the Sicilian Mafia, dangerous seductresses, and hammerhead sharks, and the story also includes sunken treasure and a cast of scheming villains.

The book weaves in threads about the English writer Samuel Johnson. Its title comes from a line in a Johnson poem, and one of the central characters shares a name from the same poem, making the novel a point of interest for Crichton fans and for readers who enjoy cerebral thrillers.