The Devil's Teeth (2005)

In her first book, The Devil's Teeth, veteran journalist Susan Casey (development editor at EW parent Time Inc.) recounts her adventures in the Farallon Islands, an intimidating cluster of rocks where the most fearsome sharks on the planet gather every year for reasons that remain a mystery to researchers. Amazing- ly, the Farallones are within San Francisco's city limits, and Casey's chronicle of how this unique environment survived nuclear contamination and endless harebrained development schemes (including the proposed relocation of Alcatraz) is one of many stranger-than-fiction elements. As the shark trivia and anecdotes about the islands' Wild West past give way to a hair-raising account of an ill-fated shark-tagging mission, Casey becomes an increasingly active participant in the story while offering skillfully wrought descriptions of nature's inscrutable fury.